I CiLMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES 

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•KsK' 

INCARDINESHIRE 





CAMBRIDGE COUNTY GEOGRAPHIES 
SCOTLAND 

General Editor : W. Murison, M.A. 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

C. F. CLAY, Manager 

LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C.4 




NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Cambridge County Geographies 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



by the late 
GEORGE H. KINNEAR, F.E.I.S. 

Headmaster, Glenbervie Public School 
Author of Glenbewis, the Fatherland of Burns 



With Maps, Diagrams, and Illustrations 



CAMBRIDGE 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1921 



M% 



,)(<6 



3 \\ ^ 



Printed in Great Britain 
by Tttrnhull c^ Spears, Edinburgh 






PREFATORY NOTE 

Mr Kinnear's death when he had written the text of 
this volume, but had not finally revised it, left the work 
to be completed by the general editor. Fortunately, 
the changes which Mr Kinnear intended to make were 
clearly marked ; and these have been closely followed. 
As it has been impossible to find an accurate list of 
those who, by advice or otherwise, assisted Mr Kinnear, 
will all who did so kindly accept this general acknow- 
ledgment of their much-appreciated help ? 

The general editor is deeply indebted to his friend, 
Mr J. B. Philip, himself a son of the Mearns, who has 
given unstintedly of his full knowledge of the county 
and has rendered invaluable service in the reading of 
the proofs. In addition, Mr Philip generously pre- 
sented a number of his own photographs for use in 
illustration. 

W. MURISON 

November 1920 



CONTENTS 



I. 


County and Shire. The Origin of Kincardine 




and Mearns ..... 


•I 


2. 


General Characteristics 


2 


3. 


Size. Shape. Boundaries 


6 


4- 


Surface. General Features. Soil . 


8 


5- 


Rivers and Lakes .... 


14 


6. 


Geology ...... 


18 


7- 


Natural History . 


27 


8. 


The Coast 


32 


9. 


Climate and Rainfall . . 


43 


10. 


People — Race, Language, Population 


48 


II. 


Agriculture ...... 


50 


12. 


Manufactures and Other Industries 


55 


13. 


Fisheries ...... 


57 


14. 


History of the County .... 


60 


15. 


Antiquities ...••• 


69 


16. 


Architecture — [a] Ecclesiastical 


74 


17- 


Architecture— (6) Castellated 


82 



viii CONTENTS 



PAGE 



1 8. Architecture — {c) Domestic . . . . 91 

19. Communications — Roads and Railways . . 95 

20. Administration and Divisions . . .100 

21. Roll of Honour ...... 103 

22. The Chief Towns and Villages of Kincardine- 

shire .113 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Coast Scenery at Muchall? . 








PAGE 

3 


View of the Feugh Valley from Scolty 






9 


The Ford, Drumtochty Glen 






II 


Bridge of Feugh . 








15 


Gannochy Bridge 








17 


Felsite Sill near Cove . 








21 


Cliff of Boulder Clay, Nigg Bay 








25 


Striated Stone from Nigg Bay 








26 


Gulls' Crag, Stonehaven 








31 


Girdleness Lighthouse . 








33 


Low Tide at Nigg Bay 








34 


The " Old Man " of Muchalls 








35 


Dunnottar from the North . 








37 


Fowlsheugh ... 








38 


The Great Cave, Fowlsheugh 








39 


Sea Cave near Cove 








41 


Rainfall Diagram 








47 


In the Birkwood, Banchory . 








54 


Herring-boats, Gouidon 








58 


Sculptured Stone, Fordoun . 








62 


Old Bridge of Dee 








64 


Regalia .... 








66 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Concealing the Regalia in Kinneff Church 
Imprisoned Clergyman baptising Children, Stone 

haven ..... 
Bronze Vessels from Banchory Loch 
Auchquhorthies. View from the South 
Auchquhorthies. Recumbent Stone 
Ogham Stone, AuquhoUie 
Surface of Crannog, Loch of Banchory 
Cowie Church .... 
Arbuthnott Church 

Illumination from Arbuthnott Book of Hours 
St Mary's College, Blairs 
Blairs Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots 
Crathes Castle .... 
Part of Vaulted Roof, Balbegno Castle 
Dunnottar from the South . 
Entrance to Dunnottar Castle 
Fetteresso Castle 
Old House of Urie 
Cairn o' Mount Road . 
Burying-place of Burns 's Ancestors 
George Keith, Fifth Earl Marischal 
Field-Marshal James Keith . 
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo 
Dr Thomas Reid 
Dr John Arbuthnot 
Captain Robert Barclay 
Nordrach-on-Dee Sanatorium, Banchory 
Mending Nets, Gourdon 



67 



ILLUSTRATIONS xi 



PAGE 



Stonehaven Harbour . . . .117 

Diagrams . . . . . . . .119 

MAPS 
Kincardineshire (Physical) .... Front Cover 
Rainfall Map of Scotland ..... 46 
Kincardineshire (Geological) .... Back Cover 



The illustrations on pp. 3, 21, 25, 26, 34, 35, 41, 58, 76, 115 are reproduced 
from photographs by Mr J. B. Philip ; those on pp. 9, 15, 54 from photo- 
graphs by W. Holmes & Co. ; those on pp. 11, 97 from photographs by 
Mr Archibald Taylor ; those on pp. 17, 33, 64, 66, 86 from photo- 
graphs by Valentine & Sons, Ltd. ; those on pp. 31, 37, 38, 62, 68, 75, 89, 
90, 92, 93, 104, 106, 112, 117 from photographs by Mr A. Ross ; those on 
PP- 39. 72 from drawings by Mr J, Reid ; that on p. 67 from a photo- 
graph by Messrs Oliver & Boyd ; those on pp. 70, 71, 73, 87 are reproduced 
by permission of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland ; that on p. jj by 
permission of the Committee of Management, Free Public Library and 
Museum, Paisley ; that on p. 79 by permission of The Aberdeen Daily 
Journal ; that on p. 81 is from a photograph by Mr F. C. Inglis ; that on 
p. 105 is reproduced, by permission of the University Court of the 
University of Aberdeen, from a photograph by Messrs T. & R. Annan & 
Sons ; those on pp. 109, iii, by arrangement with the same firm ; that on 
p. 108 from a photograph supplied by Mrs Kinnear, and that on p. 114 
from a photograph by Mr W. J. Johnston. 



I. County and Shire. The Origin of 
Kincardine and Mearns 

The word shire is of Old English origin and meant 
office, charge, administration. The Norman Conquest 
introduced the word coww/y— through French from the 
Latin comitatus, which in mediaeval documents desig- 
nates the shire. County is the district ruled by a count, 
the king's comes, the equivalent of the older English 
term earl. This system of local administration entered 
Scotland as part of the Anglo-Norman influence that 
strongly affected our country after the year iioo. 

The number of counties has not always been the same, 
nor have the boundaries always been as they are now. 
Geographically Kincardineshire and Forfarshire are one ; 
and in a very old account of the district it is stated that 
" Angus and Mearns were united and both called by the 
same name." The official who represented the King's 
authority was the Shire-reeve or Sheriff, but sheriffdoms 
were modified in number and area from time to time as 
was found convenient. Early in the fourteenth century 
there were at least twenty-five counties in Scotland, at 
the present time there are thirty-three. 

The county was manifestly named from Kincardine 
in Fordoun parish, once a town with a royal residence. 
The name Kincardine is taken to mean " the end of the 

X 



2 KINCARDINESHIRE 

high land," i.e. where the Grampians terminate. Kin- 
cardine occurs frequently as a place name along the east 
of Scotland from Ross-shire to Fife ; and, with the^ 
exception of Kincardine-on-Forth, it regularly designates 
a place at the end or the side of hills. 

The county is often spoken of as " The Mearns," 
although this is not strictly accurate. The Mearns 
constitutes the district of the county south of the 
Grampians. The Howe of the Mearns is really a con- 
tinuation of the great valley of Strathmore. Like " The 
Merse " and " The Lothians," we say " The Mearns," 
not " Mearns " alone. The etymology of Mearns is 
disputed, A tradition is that Kenneth II., in the ninth 
century, divided this region into two, bestowing them 
on his brothers iEneas and Mernas, whence they were 
called respectively Angus and Mearns. 

2. General Characteristics 

Kincardine, like its southern neighbour Forfarshire, 
of which it is indeed but a continuation, exhibits a good 
epitome of typical Scottish scenery. The two counties 
present pretty much the same physical appearance. 
Each, in a restricted though real sense, may be termed 

" Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood." 

They both show a fertile tract of level or gently 
undulating land along the coast, dotted here and there 
with green plantation, stately mansion, or comfortable- 
looking homestead. In both counties, also, the interior 



4 KINCARDINESHIRE 

is well sheltered from the biting east winds that sweep 
in from the sea by a range of hills running parallel to 
the coast — the Sidlaw Hills in Forfarshire, and the 
Garvock Heights in the Mearns. Similarly, on the 
north side of each, the Grampians rising in majestic 
grandeur form a wall of protection from the cold 
northern blasts. In both, we thus have favourable 
conditions for the production of fertile soil through the 
disintegration of the rocks and stones on the hillsides, 
and through the age-long washing down by rain -and 
flood of new soil from the " everlasting hills " into the 
valleys below. For the sportsman the hills and moors 
of Kincardineshire provide grouse and other game. 
The parish of Strachan contains the one deer forest in 
the county — the most easterly deer forest in Scotland. 

The highly picturesque scenery along the coast of 
Kincardineshire is a never-ending delight to the artist 
and to other lovers of nature ; while in its diversified 
flora, its rock structures, its antiquities, the county 
offers ample material to botanist, geologist, and 
archaeologist. 

Kincardineshire has long been connected with the 
fishing industry, but the introduction of steam trawlers 
and drifters has, to a large extent, displaced the line 
fishing which was successfully pursued from the many 
villages and creeks along the coast. Manufactures can 
hardly be said to exist in the county. With the decay 
of handloom weaving, the manufacture of linens and 
woollens was transferred to the larger centres in the 
south and north — Dundee and Aberdeen. On the 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 5 

outskirts of the Forfarshire linen-manufacturing area, 
and connected with Dundee as the principal market- 
centre, there are, however, flourishing spinning mills at 
Bervie, Gourdon, and Johnshaven. 

The county is intersected by the main line of the 
Caledonian Railway, which, at least for part of its 
distance, runs near to the route of the old roads, a fact 
which indicates the hmitations imposed by nature both 
on the ancient makers of roads and the modern makers 
of railways. The position of many of the towns and 
villages is along this natural route. A similar explana- 
tion applies to the position of the towns and villages 
along the coast and in the Dee valley. With the 
exception, however, of Stonehaven and Banchory, their 
size has not yet greatly increased under the influence 
of railways, as in other parts of the country. 

Although at one time possessed of a royal residence, 
Kincardineshire cannot be called a county of much 
national importance. On the other hand, few districts 
have afforded such an interesting field for the study of 
local history or research into manners and customs of 
the past. The county has a world-wide reputation as 
a sanatorium centre, while Stonehaven with its bracing 
air, its woods, walks, and scenes of beauty, and its unique 
opportunities for healthy recreation and enjoyment, 
attracts visitors from all parts of Britain during the 
summer months. 



6 KINCARDINESHIRE 

3. Size. Shape. Boundaries 

The county is not a large one, but its area is com- 
pact and well defined. It ranks as twenty-first of the 
Scottish counties in extent, twenty-fourth in popula- 
tion, and twentieth in point of rental. From south- 
west to north-east it is 32 miles in length, and 24 miles, 
where widest, from south to north. It lies between 
latitude 56° 46' and 57° 9' N. and between longitude 
2° 4' and 2° 44' W. The area of the county is 248,195 
acres, or approximately 388 square miles. It is only 
one-eleventh of the area of Inverness, the largest county 
in Scotland, but it is almost eight times larger than 
Clackmannan, the smallest. 

Wedged in between two bigger neighbours, Aberdeen- 
shire and Forfarshire, Kincardineshire in shape resembles 
a right-angled triangle, the right angle being at Mount 
Battock in the west, while the two sides containing it 
are lines which run, roughly speaking, along the course 
of the river Dee to Aberdeen, and along the west side 
of the county towards the mouth of the North Esk. 
The other side, formed by the coast-line from near 
Montrose to Aberdeen, has a distance of about 35 miles. 
The whole outline measures about 100 miles. 

The watershed of the Dee on the north, and the 
watershed of the North Esk on the west, practically 
mark out the county limits. The area lying between 
these two rivers and the sea comprehends a district the 
general slope of which is to the south-east.. A picturesque 
background to the district is formed by the Grampian 



SIZE— SHAPE— BOUNDARIES 7 

heights, varying in elevation from 500 to 2500 feet. 
From the summits of this natural barrier of hills, covered 
with heath and moss, there is a regular succession of 
green hills and cultivated slopes down to the Howe 
of the Mearns with its flat or undulating fields. The 
eastern boundary — the North Sea shore — runs at first 
to Bervie, a distance of 10 miles, in a north-easterly 
direction ; for the next 10 miles, to Stonehaven, it 
curves to the north ; and for the remaining 15 miles, 
to the Dee, it again takes a north-easterly direction. 
Along the north side from Aberdeen the Dee forms the 
dividing line as far as Crathes, a distance of 14 miles ; 
after which the county boundary sweeps round the 
north side of Banchory over the Hill of Fare, touching 
here the southern Aberdeenshire parishes of Echt, 
Midmar, Kincardine-O'Neil, and Birse. The western 
boundary from Mount Battock to near Montrose is 
formed by the North Esk, and the Forfarshire parishes 
of Lochlee, Edzeil, Stracathro, Logic Pert, and Montrose. 
Before 1891 the parishes of Banchory-Ternan, Drum- 
oak, and Banchory-Devenick were partly in Kincardine- 
shire, partly in Aberdeenshire. In that year Banchory- 
Ternan was all included in Kincardineshire, and Drumoak 
in Aberdeenshire. The designation Banchory-Devenick 
was now restricted to the Kincardineshire portion, 
while the rest was added to the Aberdeenshire parish 
of Peterculter. At the same time the parish of Edzeil, 
which had been partly in Forfarshire, partly in 
Kincardineshire, lost its Kincardineshire portion, which 
was transferred, to the parish of Fettercairn. 



8 KINCARDINESHIRE 

4, Surface. General Features. Soil 

A bird's-eye view would show the county to be divided 
into two parts of nearly equal size, but of " totally 
different aspects. As a whole it is very diversified, 
embracing districts that are entirely of a Highland type 
of scenery, while in the south and east the lowland 
and the maritime type predominate. In appearance, it 
resembles Forfarshire, which, however, excels in extent 
and boldness of mountain summits. 

The two main divisions of the county may be 
further regarded as being naturally sub-divided into four 
longitudinal and parallel districts : the Maritime, the 
Howe, the Grampian, and the Deeside. The Grampian 
district stretches through the whole breadth of the 
county from west to east, and is on an average from 
16 to 18 miles in length and from 6 to 8 miles across 
from south to north. It is naturally rugged, sterile, and 
dreary. Its total area may be reckoned at 120 square 
miles, mostly moor and heather. From Mount Battock 
(2555 ft.) in the north-west, the highest peak in the dis- 
trict, the Grampians gradually descend and are popularly 
regarded as terminating in the low heights (about 
200 ft.) near the Bay of Nigg. Of the other Grampian 
peaks the most prominent are Clochnaben (1944 ft.), with 
its granite knob 100 ft. high, a well-known landmark from 
the sea ; Kerloch (1747 ft.), and Cairnmonearn (1245 ft.). 
The Hill of Fare on the north side of the Dee reaches a 
height of 1429 ft., while on the opposite side of the 
river, Scolty Hill (982 ft.), with its monument to General 




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10 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Burnett, is a notable landmark, from which, as from the 
top of most of the hills, splendid views are obtainable 
of the scenery of Aberdeenshire on the north, and of the 
Howe on the south. 

The Deeside district extends westward from the 
mouth of the Dee along the southern banks of that river 
for 23 miles, and has an area of about 54 square miles. 
There is also a portion of this district on the north bank 
of the Dee above Banchory, extending to about 26 square 
miles. Although, as regards agriculture, Deeside is a 
comparatively poor region, yet there is in it a greater 
proportion of surface under timber than in any other 
part of the county. This gives it a very pleasing aspect, 
embellished as it is by the waters of the " Silvery Dee," 
flowing along through the level haughs and meadows 
that lie between the encircling slopes on both sides of 
•the valley. 

The Howe of the Mearns district, about 16 miles long, 
.5 miles broad, and having an area of about 50 square 
miles, forms the eastern boundary of the Vale of Strath- 
■ more ; but, in comparison with it, the Howe is very flat 
and bare, especially towards the eastern extremities. The 
soil here has a characteristically red appearance, due to 
the underlying clay, popularly known as " Mearns Keel." 

On the lower slopes of the Grampians and overlooking 
the splendid panorama of scenery in the Howe are 
several well-known peaks. From west to east these are 
the Cairn (1488 ft.) ; Whitelaws (1664 ft.) ; Houndhillock 
(1698 ft.) ; Balnakettle Hill (1000 ft.) ; Garrol (1035 ft.) ; 
Arnbarrow (1060 ft.) ; Strathfinella (1358 ft.) ; Tipperty 



SURFACE AND GENERAL FEATURES 11 

(1042 ft.) ; Herscha (725 ft.) ; and Knock Hill (717 ft.). 
On the north side of Strathfinella lies one of the most 
romantic and picturesque spots in Scotland, the famous 
Glen of Drumtochty, leading by the " Clatterin Brigs " 
to Fettercairn and the Burn. 

Between the Howe and the coast a lower range of 




The Ford, Drumtochty Glen 

hills, known as the Garvock Heights, cultivated almost 
to their summits, runs in a south-easterly direction 
through the parishes of Arbuthnott, Garvock, and 
St Cyrus. Their elevation ranges from 500 to 900 ft. 
Johnston Tower (915 ft.), immediately above Laurence- 
kirk, is a conspicuous object from all points of the 
compass. The view from this point is magnificent, 
comprising hill and dale, stream and sea, fertile fields 
and cosy homesteads. The descent from the Garvock 



12 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Heights to both the Howe and the sea is gradual, the 
slopes on each side being here and there dotted with 
patches of wood or grassy moorland which give fresh- 
ness and colour to a somewhat bare and monotonous 
district. East of the Bervie valley a lower range, 
really a spur of the Garvock Heights, starts at Carmont 
Hill (710 ft.), on the south side of the Carron Water, and 
is continued, with a slight descent, over Bruxie Hill (700 
ft.) to Bervie Brow (451 ft.), overlooking Bervie Bay. 

When the character of the soils of the county is con- 
sidered, regard must be had to the nature and structure 
of the underlying geological formation, since the soils 
are indebted to disintegrated rocks for their mineral 
constituents. The quality of a soil, moreover, depends 
largely on the upper formation of the neighbouring 
heights, the decomposed portions of which are washed 
down by rain and flood to the lower grounds and there 
incorporated in the soil. 

The best farming district in the county is undoubtedly 
along the coast, especially between St Cyrus and Bervie. 
The soil here is a deep black loam. Most of it is free, 
parts of it tenacious, but none of a stiff, clayish nature. 
The farms in the St Cyrus district are undoubtedly the 
most fertile in the county. The liberal application of lime 
from the lime-kilns at St Cyrus in the beginning of the 
last century was a valuable factor in improving the soil ; 
and this, combined with intelligent and up-to-date 
methods of cultivation, is reflected in the general 
excellence of the crops in this district. In striking 
contrast are the thin and cold soils of the Garvock 



SURFACE AND GENERAL FEATURES 13 

region. Owing to elevation, exposure, and absence of 
thorough drainage in many parts, the soil cannot be 
called a very kindly one, although during the last half 
century much has been done to improve the appearance 
of this somewhat bare district. 

The soils in the Howe of the Mearns are rather vari- 
able, ranging from deep brown soils resting on the 
boulder clay, to a light gravelly moorish soil stretching 
right up to the middle of the Howe, through part of 
the parishes of Marykirk, Laurencekirk, Fettercairn, 
and Fordoun. Li the neighbourhood of Laurencekirk 
th'e soil is a stiff clay, though on the whole a good crop- 
ping soil. The Grampian district, the largest in the 
county, is naturally a poor farming district, the soil 
being neither deep nor productive. Still, on the clay- 
slate formation, we find along the southern spurs of 
the Grampians a soil remarkably well-adapted for the 
growth of timber plantations, which are here very 
numerous. 

The soil on Deeside is of a thin, gravelly nature, 
being formed from decomposed schists and granite 
rocks, with a small proportion of moss or decayed 
vegetation. Though not suitable for the production of 
heavy crops such as wheat and barley, the soil of Dee- 
side is remarkably suitable for the culture of small 
fruits (strawberries and raspberries), and especially for 
the growth of timber. Between Deeside and the coast, 
in the district around Muchalls, much of the soil is 
mossy, while between Stonehaven and Aberdeen a strip 
of land, bordering the sea and extending a few miles 



14. KINCARDINESHIRE 

inland, is of the same nature. In the neighbourhood 
of Aberdeen, part of the land is laid out for the 
cultivation of potatoes and vegetables, a ready market 
for which is got there. 



5. Rivers and Lakes 

With the exception of the Dee and the North Esk, 
which belong only in part to Kincardineshire, the rivers 
of the county are comparatively small. But from its 
diversified and unequal surface, and from the fact that 
the land slopes in many directions, the streams are 
numerous, and every part of the county is well-watered. 
By reclamation, drainage, and improved cultivation, 
and the consequent disappearance of water-logged 
haughs adjacent to rivers, the streams are smaller than 
formerly, but admirably adapted for the natural and 
the artificial drainage of their districts. The course of 
the streams flowing from the Grampians to the North 
Sea shows the general slope of the county to be towards 
the south-east. The northern district is drained by 
numerous tributaries discharging into the Dee, and the 
western by the North Esk and its feeders. 

The Dee, 96 miles from source to sea, issues out of 
Braeriach, one of the Cairngorm summits, at the " Wells 
of Dee," and flowing eastward, enters Kincardineshire 
near Potarch. Through the three-spanned bridge of 
Potarch, between Aboyne and Banchory, it sweeps deep 
and strong over its gravelly bed. The road over 
Cairn o' Mount, the much-frequented old road from Tay 



RIVERS AND LAKES 15 

to Dee, formerly crossed here by a ford below the bridge. 
For 12 miles the river continues its course through the 
county, and then forms the northern boundary for the 
remaining 14 miles. From Kincardine-O'Neil it receives 
the Canny (9 miles) directly below Inchmarlo House 
and close to Invercanny reservoirs, connected with the 




Bridge of Feugh 

Aberdeen water supply ; and also the small burns of 
Cluny and Corrichie from the Hill of Fare. On the 
south side the Feugh (20 miles), from the Forest of 
Birse, flows for 8 miles to Whitestone. There it is 
joined by the Aan (10 miles), which comes along ^the 
county boundary from Mount Battock, and at Kirkton 
of Strachan by the Dye from Glen Dye. The Bridge of 
Feugh, 350 yards from the point where the Feugh and 
Dee join, is one of the most noted and beautiful spots 



16 KINCARDINESHIRE 

on Deeside. The bridge itself, a plain structure, 
derives its picturesqueness from the rocky channel of 
the river both above and below it. Here the stream, 
embowered in a wealth of wood and greenery, courses 
swiftly over and around ledges of projecting rock, the 
foaming water, especially when the river is in flood, 
forming a magnificent spectacle. Though neither the 
longest nor the largest river in Scotland, the Dee lays 
claim to being one of the most rapid. Rising 4000 ft. 
above sea level and fed by numerous mountain streams, 
it has a flow of water remarkably pure, although it is 
subject to high and sudden floods. Its banks, through- 
out its entire course, are extremely well-wooded, while 
as a salmon stream it has few equals. 

The North Esk, sometimes called the East Water, has 
a course of 40 miles to the sea from its source in Loch 
Lee in Forfarshire. Towards the foot of Glen Esk it 
touches Kincardineshire, and for the next 14 miles forms 
the south-west boundary of the county. For romantic 
beauty its course of 5 miles through the beautiful woods 
of the Burn could hardly be surpassed. Here the river 
has ploughed out for itself a deep gorge between rugged 
rocks, along which are pleasant winding paths, shaded 
by overhanging foHage. From the " Loup's Brig," as 
well as from Gannochy Bridge, a lofty arch, 30 feet 
high and 52 feet wide, on the Fettercairn to Edzell road, 
the foaming cataracts and dark pools confined between 
the rocks and chffs form a scene of surpassing beauty 
and grandeur. The Esk drains an area of 224 square 
miles, 80 of which belong to Kincardineshire. The 



RIVERS AND LAKES 17 

river has shifted its mouth several times in recent 
centuries, as is shown by an examination of the triangular 
patch of alluvial soil and sand, north of its present 
mouth. Up to the end of the eighteenth century it 
entered the sea 2 miles, and up to 1879 i mile, further 
north than it enters now. The Luther (12 miles) is the 




Gannochy Bridge 

largest feeder of the North Esk from within the county. 
Encircling Strathfinella Hill, it flows first through the 
beautiful glen of Drumtochty, then sweeping southward 
and westward through the Howe, it joins the North Esk 
about 2 miles from the village of Marykirk. 

Of the other streams in the east, the Bervie (16 miles) 
is the largest and most interesting. From the uplands 
of Glenbervie, it takes a south-easterly course, rounds 
Knock Hill, and winds through the fertile haughs of 

B 



18 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Fordoun and Arbuthnott, reaching the sea at Bervie. 
Its banks are picturesquely wooded near the old mansion- 
house of Arbuthnott. The Bervie is a famous trouting- 
stream, and has a salmon- fishery at its mouth. The 
burn of Catterline in the east of Kinneff ; the burn of 
Benholm in Benholm parish ; and the burn of Finella 
in St Cyrus, enter the sea through gorges worn by the 
water in the rocks that crown their banks. The Den 
of Finella with its waterfall 70 ft. high rivals in grandeur 
the scenery of the North Esk at the Burn, though not 
on so extensive a scale. Tradition relates that, when 
Queen Finella was pursued after the murder of King 
Kenneth III., she fled here, 

"And leapt from the rocks to a wild, wild boiling pool, 
Where her body was torn and tossed." 

The lochs in the county are few and small. The 
Loch of Leys in Banchory was over 2 miles in circuit, 
but is now drained ; Loirston Loch in Nigg is 27 acres 
in extent. There are two extremely pretty artificial 
lakes in the county. That within the policies of Fasque 
House is 20 acres in extent ; and Glensaugh Loch, in 
the upper part of Drumtochty Glen, has certainly now 
little appearance of being artificial. Both have wooded 
islets, and are the haunts of wild duck and other water 
fowl. 



6. Geology 

From the point of view of origin, all rocks belong to 
one or other of two groups. There are the igneous 



GEOLOGY 19 

rocks, which have been at one time in a molten condi- 
tion, and which have become consohdated by a process 
of crystaUisation ; while the derivative rocks, directly 
or indirectly, result from the decay of pre-existing 
rocks. Familiar examples of igneous rocks are the 
lavas from modern volcanoes. Sometimes, however, 
the molten matter fails to reach the surface, and is 
consolidated, as granite for example, in or between 
other rocks. It is then called intrusive. Derivative 
rocks are often spoken of as sedimentary, because for 
the most part they have been deposited as sediments 
in the flow of lake or sea. They may be recognised in 
the field by their bedded or stratified character. Igneous 
rocks, on the other hand, are unbedded. Many rock 
masses have been so profoundly altered by heat, by 
pressure, and by other causes, that their original char- 
acters are more or less obscured. Such rocks are 
termed metamorfhic. Examples of these are the wide- 
spread mica schists and gneisses. 

The deposits now forming in the sea floor tend to 
be arranged in approximately horizontal layers. Very 
often, however, as a result of coastal movements the 
sedimentary rocks have been tilted (sometimes, as at 
Stonehaven, the bedding planes are quite vertical) ; 
or again they have yielded to pressure by folding or 
fracturing. The folding may be simple, as in the rocks 
which underhe the Howe of the Mearns ; or complicated, 
as in the schists of the Grampians. A splendid illustra- 
tion of a fracture or fault on a big scale is seen in 
the " Highland Fault," which forms the geographical 



20 KINCARDINESHIRE 

boundary between the Highlands and the Midland Valley 
of Scotland. It enters Kincardineshire at the Woods 
of the Burn, and reaches the North Sea at Garron Point, 
near Stonehaven. 

To many the chief interest of geology lies in the study 
of fossils, the remains of plants and animals preserved 
in the sedimentary rocks. Fossils enable us to ascertain 
the relative age of rocks and to classify them in groups 
and systems. The oldest rocks of the earth's crust, the 
Pre-Cambrian, contain few fossils. Overlying these are 
four great groups, which, taken in order of age, have 
been named as follows : (i) Primary or PalcEozoic ; 
(2) Secondary or Mesozoic ; (3) Tertiary or Cainozoic ; 
(4) Post-Tertiary. The rocks of known age in Kin- 
cardineshire belong either to the Primary group or to 
the Post-Tertiary. The Post-Tertiary deposits include 
the boulder clays and fluvio-glacial gravels and sands, 
the raised beaches which fringe the coast, the alluvial 
terraces or haughs of the river valleys, and the peat 
mosses. 

Considering first the solid rocks of the county, we find 
they are of markedly different character on opposite 
sides of the Highland" Fault. To the north of that 
great fracture they belong mainly to the Dalradian 
series, to the south to the Old Red Sandstone, Between 
the Dalradian rocks and the Highland Fault, however, 
at the Woods of the Burn, at Glensaugh, at the Bervie 
Water, and at Elfhill, areas occur to which has been 
applied the term Highland Border rocks. On the coast 
between Cowie and Garron Point, but on the south side 



GEOLOGY 



21 



of the Highland Fault, rocks similar in their hthological 
characters have yielded fossils which indicate that they 
are in all probability of Cambrian age. Another inter- 
esting suite of rocks occupying the coast section from 
Ruthery Head to Stonehaven Harbour, and extending 




Felsite Sill near Cove 

inland for 7 miles, has recently been shown to contain 
characteristic Silurian fossils. 

The Old Red Sandstone system of Scotland is sub- 
divided into Lower, Middle, and Upper. Rocks belonging 
to the Lower series occupy most of the southern half 
of Kincardineshire. The Middle series is absent, and 
the Upper is found only in a narrow tract along the 
coast near St Cyrus. 

The Dalradian rocks may be ^udied most conveniently 



22 KINCARDINESHIRE 

in the cliffs between Garron Point and the Bay of Nigg, 
but numerous good sections are exposed in the streams 
which traverse the hills between the valley of the Dee, 
and the border of the Highlands. Intrusive rocks of 
various types are found associated with the Dalradian 
rocks. In the neighbourhood of Banchory, for example, 
these have been " flooded " with a very old granite ; 
and later dykes are everywhere abundant. Further, 
the dominating features in the scenery of the northern 
half of the county are produced by intrusive rocks — 
the " newer " granites on either side of the valley of 
the Dee. 

The Highland Border rocks consist of two groups : 
an older series (probably Cambrian) made up of green 
pillowy lavas, associated with red jaspers, g^-een cherts, 
and black shales ; and a younger series of conglomerate 
grits, limestone, and shales. Both groups show a 
splendid development at the " Rocks of Solitude " in 
Glenesk ; and the fossiliferous shales of the older series 
may be hammered in the cliffs at Craigeven Bay, Stone- 
haven. The most abundant fossils are early types of 
Brachiopods or lamp shells. The limestone of the 
younger series was at one time extensively worked. 

During early Silurian times the region to the north 
of the Highland Fault began to undergo compression 
and elevation. The Dalradian rocks and the rocks of 
the Highland Border series were thrown into great 
folds ; the coastal movements moreover heralded a 
violent outburst of volcanic activity. We may picture 
the Grampians of that period as a lofty mountain 



GEOLOGY 23 

range with numerous active volcanoes, snow-covered 
doubtless, and resembling perhaps the Andes of the 
present day. 

The magnificent cliffs from Stonehaven southwards 
afford splendid opportunities for the study of the Lower 
Old Red Sandstone. Coarse conglomerates predomin- 
ate, but occasionally give place to micaceous sandstones, 
while at intervals the succession of bedded rocks is 
broken by massive piles of lavas. Some of the bedded 
rocks, too, on close examination, prove to be volcanic 
tuffs, the consohdated " ashes " of the contemporaneous 
volcanoes. Tuffs occur also at Cowie, where their 
presence shows that volcanic activity had already begun 
in Silurian times. It continued until almost the close 
of the Lower Old Red Sandstone period. The hard 
resistant lavas form most of the high ground in the 
southern half of the county. The Garvock Hills, for 
example, are built up for the most part of a great suc- 
cession of lava flows, and show beautifully from certain 
points of view the characteristic step-like arrangement 
which suggested the old name of '' trap " rocks. 

At the close of Lower Old Red Sandstone times coastal 
movements again made themselves felt in no uncertain 
fashion. The rocks of this period were compressed 
into simple "saddle-shaped" and ''trough-shaped" 
folds — the Howe of the Mearns marks the position of 
one of the latter — and then, too, in all probability, 
was initiated differential movement along the line of 
the Highland Fault. The forces of denudation became 
active, and from the disintegration of the Lower Old 



24 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Red Sandstone and older rocks were built up the bedded 
rocks of the Upper Old Red Sandstone. The latter 
formation occurs in the coastal track between St Cyrus 
and the mouth of the North Esk, and is everywhere 
separated from the Lower Old Red Sandstone by lines 
of faulting. A vast epoch of time intervened between 
the deposition of the two formations. No fossils have 
been obtained so far from the Upper series in Kin- 
cardineshire, and the age of the rocks is inferred from 
their structural relations and from their lithological 
resemblances to fossiliferous rocks of like age in other 
parts of Scotland. One of the most characteristic rocks 
is a variety of nodular limestone known as " cornstone." 
This, like the limestones of the Highland Border, was 
at one time burned for lime. 

Now follows, as regards our county, a great gap in 
the geological record. Of the story of the remainder 
of the Palaeozoic epoch, and of the whole of the Meso- 
zoic and Cainozoic times the rocks of Kincardineshire 
tell us but little, and that little very indirectly. In the 
Upper Old Red Sandstone period the highest forms of 
life were primitive fishes. Amphibians, reptiles, birds 
and mammals had, in succession, been evolved. 

The Post-Tertiary deposits in Kincardineshire con- 
sist mostly of accumulations of sand and gravel, and 
of boulder clay or till with its characteristic striated 
boulders. They tell us of a time not so very long ago, 
geologically speaking, when the whole of Scotland, with 
the exception of a few of the highest mountain peaks, 
was buried deep in the ice sheet of the Great Ice Age. 



26 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



The striated stones are the tools with which the ice 
sheet accompHshed its work. How effectively that 
work was done is evidenced by the rounded, flowing 
contours of our hills, by the presence of boulder clay 
and erratic blocks, by the glacial grooving on a big scale 




Striated Stone from Nigg Bay 

wherever belts of soft rock lay in the path of the ice, 
and by the preservation of the ancient bottom moraine, 
the great thickness of till which conceals the solid 
rocks over much of the county. That the minor surface 
features are largely glacial in origin cannot for a moment 
be doubted. One instance must suffice. No one travel- 
ling along the Howe of the Mearns can fail to note the 
contrast offered by the bordering hills. On the one 



NATURAL HISTORY 27 

side, the even boulder-clay-covered slopes of the Garvock 
Hills rise gently from the plain ; on the other, every 
valley opening from the Grampians is fronted by one 
or more steep-faced terraces. The terraces consist of 
sand and gravel deposited in lakes formed at a time when, 
while the local hills were free from ice, a great lobe of 
the Highland ice sheet still occupied the Howe. Similar 
phenomena are seen in the wide valley of the Dee. 

7. Natural History 

In recent times — recent, that is, geologically — no sea 
separated Britain from the Continent. The present bed 
of the North Sea was a low plain intersected by streams. 
At that period, then, the plants and the animals of our 
country were identical with those of Western Europe. 
But the Ice Age came and crushed out life in this region. 
In time, as the ice melted, the flora and fauna gradually 
returned, for the land-bridge still existed. Had it 
continued to exist, our plants and animals would have 
been the same as in Northern France and the Nether- 
lands. But the sea drowned the land and cut off 
Britain from the Continent before all the species found 
a home here. Consequently, on the east of the North 
Sea all our mammals and reptiles, for example, are 
found along with many which are not indigenous to 
Britain. In Scotland, however, we are proud to possess 
in the red grouse a bird not belonging to the fauna of 
the Continent. 

The flora of Great Britain has been divided, as regards 



28 KINCARDINESHIRE 

climatic types, into four classes — (i) Alpine ; (2) Sub- 
Alpine ; (3) Lowland ; (4) Maritime.. Kincardineshire, 
with its diversified soil and situation and with an eleva- 
tion reaching over 2000 ft., has representatives of all 
the four classes. The county as a whole is remarkably 
rich in the number and the variety of its wild plants, 
while several spots within it have acquired more than 
a local reputation as a hunting ground for the botanist. 
Thus, we have on the coast the well-known St Cyrus 
braes, where, owing to favourable conditions, a large 
number of plants occur that are not found in other 
parts of the county. Here the volcanic rocks decom- 
pose into a light brown soil, extremely suitable for the 
growth of wild flowers, unless when exposed to con- 
tinuous drought, which in our climate does not often 
occur. The exposure of the rocks, forming cliffs almost. 
200 ft. high, facing south and east, adds to the warmth 
afforded by the soil. Here, during the summer, may be 
seen in abundance the pretty little maiden pink, the 
prolific rest harrow, bladder campion, viper's bugloss, 
bloody crane's bill, hemp agrimony, common cudweed 
(the herha impia of old writers), butterbur, marjoram, 
goat's beard, red poppy, field pepperwort, soft knotted 
clover, rough podded yellow vetch, field garlic, wild 
sweet pea, Nottingham catch-fly, and others. 

On the loose sands along the banks of the North Esk 
and in the salt marshes at its mouth grow the lesser 
meadow rue, the sea rocket, the thrift or sea pink, the 
prickly saltwort and other similar plants. Close to the 
river, on ground liable to be flooded at high tides, may 



NATURAL HISTORY 29 

be found sea pearlwort, sandwort spurreys, sea milk- 
wort, jointed glasswort, sea arrow grass, and several 
varieties of sedges. Grass wrack, one of the few flower- 
ing plants of salt water, grows in the mud at the old 
mouth of the river. 

The braes and seashore of Muchalls, though inferior 
to St Cyrus in number and variety of specimens, are 
of great interest to botanists. Besides some of the 
commoner plants already mentioned, Muchalls supplies 
lamb's lettuce, sea wormwood, white campion, the 
lovely oyster plant, and several varieties of worts, 
willow herbs, vetches and sedges. 

Inland, wild flowers abound, especially along the 
rivers, in the sheltered glens, and on the wooded hills. 
To mention only a few, we have lung wort, wintergreen, 
cordalys, wood bitter vetch, celery-leaved crowfoot, 
buckbean or bogbean, water plantain, comfrey ; with 
such commoner forms as ragged robin, greater and lesser 
celandine, lady's bedstraw^ knapweed, golden rod, eye- 
bright, field gentian, forget-me-not, and ground ivy. 
The Alpine flora includes Alpine lady's mantle, willow 
herb, mountain and water avens ; and in the bogs 
and marshy slopes, sundew [Drosera rotundifolia and 
D. latifolia), very plentiful in Netherley moss, butter- 
wort, bog orchis, bog violet, and others. 

Numerous varieties of the mosses of north-east 
Scotland occur in Kincardineshire, in the wet and boggy 
parts by river banks, as at the Burn or along the Dee 
valley, and at the seaside. Of ferns, beside the common 
polypody, which is very abundant, we find the beech 



30 KINCARDINESHIRE 

fern, the graceful oak fern, five varieties of the Aspidia 
(including the rough Alpine shield and the close-leaved 
prickly shield), the bladder fern. Five or six spleen- 
worts (including the wall rue spleenwort and the sea 
spleenwort) grow along the chffs in the south of the 
county and as far north as Muchalls and Portlethen, 
where also the black spleenwort has been gathered. 

The fauna of Kincardineshire includes the ordinary 
animals of the country. The fox is not so numerous as 
he was in the early years of the nineteenth century, 
when fox hunting, now entirely given up in the shire, 
was indulged in by some of the county gentlemen. 
The brown hare has, however, increased very much in 
numbers, not always to the advantage of the farmer's 
crops. The blue or mountain hare is plentiful on 
the Grampian slopes. Wild rabbits, known only as 
children's pets in the county before 1808, abound 
everywhere. The otter is occasionally seen by the side 
of the larger streams, but the badger and wild cat 
are now extinct. Squirrels, unknown in the county a 
century ago, are now fairly numerous. Roe deer are 
found in the lower Grampian slopes, and red deer 
sometimes in the Glen of Dye and elsewhere. Grouse 
and partridge are numerous, while the heron builds in 
the high trees by the North Esk and the Bervie, and may 
be seen feeding in the river pools. The capercailzie has 
come by Dye and Feugh to Dee. 

To the sea birds the chffs afford a secure retreat 
and a fitting nursery. The guillemot, credited errone- 
ously with being a stupid bird, asserts his superiority 



NATURAL HISTORY 31 

in number over the kittiwakes, tommie-nories, or 
Greenland parrots, gulls and coots, which inhabit 
the precipitous ledges of their summer home. 




.»^fe«^^ 



Gulls* Crag, Stonehaven 

With the increase of woods and other shelter the 
smaller birds have increased in number. The yellow- 
hammer, hedge sparrow, chaffinch, stonechat, and other 
similar birds are everywhere in evidence by the road- 



32 KINCARDINESHIRE 

sides and fields, while the blackbird, the starling, and 
the mavis are not averse to sampling the products of 
the fruit garden in summer or early autumn. 

The goldfinch and the siskin are now extremely 
rare, while the magpie is decreasing in numbers. The 
ptarmigan is extinct. The golden eagle is practically 
extinct, though one or two have been sighted in the 
hills above Drumtochty. Rare visitants are the quail, 
snow-bunting, great spotted woodpecker, Bohemian 
waxwing, little auk, Manx shearwater, heij harrier, 
peregrine falcon, and common buzzard ; but these can 
only be regarded as accidental visitors, driven thither 
by stress of weather or other circumstances. 



8. The Coast 

The seaboard, 35 miles in length, which Kincardine- 
shire possesses, is perhaps as interesting as any other 
part of the Scottish coast, on account not merely of its 
picturesque rock scenery but also of its historical asso- 
ciations. All the way paths run close to the sea, from 
many points in which splendid views can be got of 
maritime and inland scenery, though undoubtedly we 
obtain the best idea of its beauty when sailing along 
the coast. Like most of the eastern seaboard of Scot- 
land, the Kincardineshire portion is much exposed to 
the strong gales sweeping in from the North Sea ; and 
this, combined with the rocky nature of the greater 
part of the shore, accounts for many of the shipping 
disasters that occur. 




:3 
o 

I. 



34 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



Starting our peregrination from Aberdeen we note 
first the Bay of Nigg, flanked on the north by the 
lighthouse of Girdleness, and on the south by Greg 
Ness, the circular outline of the bay being fringed by 
a beautiful pebbly shore. Here, formerly, was the 




Low Tide at Nigg Bay 

{Shoiving stones from cliff of boulder clay) 

mouth of the Dee, which flowed in the hollow from 
Craiginches. On the bay stands a fish-hatchery with 
laboratory. A little inland is St Fittick's ruined church. 
Prominent on the south of the bay is a cliff of boulder 
clay, the rapid erosion of which has littered the beach 
with thousands of stones. 

Passing on, we find the coast bold, rocky, and pictur- 
esque ; and we reach in succession the small fishing 



36 KINCARDINESHIRE 

villages of Cove and Portlethen. Between them, but 
back from the cliffs, is Findon, world-famous as the 
original home of the " Finnan haddock." " The 
haddocks cured there," says Thom (History of Aberdeen), 
" are superior in flavour and taste to any other, which 
is attributed to the nature of the turf used in smoking 
them." The industry is now entirely given up in 
Findon. Skateraw, a httle further south, is, like the 
other creeks, reached by a narrow, circuitous path down 
the sea slopes, up which in former days the hardy 
fishermen carried in their creels the shining " harvest 
of the sea " to be transported by road or rail to the 
larger centres of population. Part of the fish supplies 
landed here were split and sun-dried on the stony beach, 
and went by the name of " speldingsJ' Like the 
"Finnan haddie," .these, when properly cooked, were 
held in high esteem. The small burn of Elsick, spanned 
by a substantial railway viaduct, here enters the sea. 

The next part of the coast, adjacent to the neat 
little village of Muchalls, has received much attention 
from the* painter of maritime subjects, and deservedly 
so, because of the artistic beauty of the rugged, weather- 
beaten cliffs. Here by the ceaseless action of the 
elements the softer portions of the cliffs have been 
scooped out into long, deep gullies through which in 
stormy mood the sea rolls with resounding and majestic 
grandeur. The " Fisher's Shore," the " Grim Brigs " 
with its wonderful arches of Nature's own devising, the 
" Old Man," and the " Scarfs Crag," around and above 
which for ever breaks the crested wave, are notable 



THE COAST 



37 



points whose names, like that of " Gin Shore," a httle 
further south, are reminiscent of the past, and full of 
interest and suggestion. 

Between Muchalls and Stonehaven we pass Garron 
Point, on whose green summit stand the picturesque 
ruins of the old chapel of Cowie. The little fishing 




Dunnottar from the North 

village of Cowie nestles below the cliffs, while above, 
skirting the shore, is the Stonehaven Golf Course, from 
which splendid views can be had of sea and shore. 

Stonehaven Bay extends in a circular sweep from 
Garron Point to Downie Point. Alongside of its pebbly 
beach runs a promenade, flanked on the north by 
extensive recreation grounds. Its waters give ample 
scope for bathing and boating, while the dull grey and 
brown outlines of the Old Town dwelhngs at the southern 
end impart an old-world appearance to the scene. 



38 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



Rounding the Black Hill, from the top of which 
unrolls one of the finest views of town,, coast and inland, 
we reach the historic castle of Dunnottar, where, as 
Carlyle's eulogy of the famous Marshal Keith reminds 
us, " The hoarse sea winds and caverns sing vague 




Fowlsheugh 

requiems to his honourable hue and him." Here the 
panorama formed by cliffs and bay is magnificent — the 
former almost 170 ft. high with cathedral-like arches, 
the latter with gloomy creeks and caverns. The very 
names, as '' Brun Cheek," " Maiden Kaim," " Long 
Gallery," " Wine Cove," testify to Nature's handiwork 
and skill. South of Trelung Ness we reach the highest 



. THE COAST 39 

of the rocks, the diffs of Fowlsheugh, the noted nursery 
for sea birds, extending over a mile. The birds make 
their nests in the crevices of the conglomerate rock, 
out of which by constant weathering pebbles have been 




The Great Cave, Fowlsheugh 

{Looking out to sea) 

forced, affording a natural nesting-place. The spectacle 
of the myriads of birds in early summer, on 

" the dreadful summit of the cliff 
That beetles o'er his base into the sea," 

is most interesting and instructive, and will well repay 
a visit from others than bird-lovers. 

Between Fowlsheugh Point and Bervie Bay the cliffs 
are still bold and precipitous, with generally no beach 
between their base and the deep water. Todhead hght- 



40 KINCARDINESHIRE 

house stands on a prominent headland at the southern 
extremity of Braidon Bay, a httle beyond the old 
fashioned fishing village of Catterline. Craig David, 
a few miles further south, overlooking Bervie Bay, 
marks the terminus of the high cliffs which form the 
natural wall of protection to most of the Kincardineshire 
coast. 

From this point onwards the configuration of the 
coast-line is entirely different. The beach is now low, 
pebble-strewn, and gravelly, with low, shelving rocks 
jutting out to the sea. Gourdon — dominated by 
Gourdon Hill, a noted landmark for seamen — and 
Johnshaven have both small harbours, their appearance 
from above being quaint and picturesque. A little 
further south is the hamlet of Milton of Mathers. 
Rounding a bend in the coast we pass the Kaim of 
Mathers, and reach St Cyrus braes, varying in height 
from 50 to 300 ft. On the summit stands conspicuous 
the parish church with its lofty spire. Passing over a 
flat beach of fine sand bound together by sea grasses 
and other marine plants, we end our perambulation of 
the coast at the mouth of the North Esk. 

The coast-line of the county bears witness to the 
gigantic power of marine erosion. Chffs and bays, 
caves and half-tide stacks, show that the action of the 
sea in sculpturing coastal scenery is everywhere guided 
by rock-composition and structure. In this connection 
we may quote the words of Sir Charles Lyell with 
regard to a case of historic interest. " On the coast 
of Kincardineshire an illustration was afforded, at 



42 KINCARDINESHIRE 

the close of last century [the eighteenth], of the- 
effect of promontories in protecting a line of low- 
shore. The village of Mathers, two miles south of 
Johnshaven, was built on an ancient shingle beach, 
protected by a projecting ledge of limestone rock. This 
was quarried for lime to such an extent that the sea 
broke through, and in 1795 carried away the whole 
village in one night, and penetrated 150 yards inland, 
where it has maintained its ground ever since, the new 
village having been built further inland on the new 
shore." 

In late glacial and post-glacial times there took place 
alterations in the relative level of land and sea. The 
raised beaches of the coast and the alluvial tracts of 
the river valleys were formed when the land stood rela- 
tively lower than at present. Two sets of beaches are 
clearly marked in Kincardineshire. Both are well seen 
at Stonehaven, the newer part of which is built on the 
fiat of the loo-ft. beach, the older on the 25-ft. beach. 
The lower beach shows its best development southwards 
from Bervie, the old sea-cliff forming a strong feature 
all the way to the mouth of the North Esk, and the flat 
rocky foreshore of the present sea margin offering a 
striking contrast to the frowning cliffs which bound the 
shore from Bervie to Stonehaven harbour. That the 
land at one period stood higher (or the sea lower) than 
at present is shown by the occurrence of a buried forest 
beneath the 25-ft. beach. 



CLIMATE AND RAINFALL 43 

9. Climate and Rainfall 

The climate of a district, which may generally be 
defined as its average weather, depends upon the 
amount of heat and moisture, and these in turn depend 
upon latitude, altitude, slope, and, in some degree also, 
on the state of cultivation. Britain is in the same 
latitude as ice-bound Labrador, yet it possesses a 
temperate climate, due to the fact that the prevailing 
winds being from the west or south-west bring with 
them a certain amount of moisture and heat acquired 
in their passage over the Atlantic, which is three degrees 
warmer than the air. This explains why the west coast 
of Britain is warmer than the east. For the same 
reason the east is drier than the west, for the winds in 
passing over the mountains part with their moisture 
before reaching the east coast. 

The physical configuration of Kincardineshire has 
much to do with both its temperature and its rainfall. 
Situated on the extreme south-eastern slope of the 
central highlands, it has behind it the immense ex- 
tent of the Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, and Argyleshire 
mountains, shutting it off from the Atlantic seaboard. 
Thus the winds of winter from that quarter get gradu- 
ally cooled and, reaching the east, speak not of the 
warm Atlantic, but of the snow-clad Grampians. One 
degree of diminution of temperature for every 300 ft. 
of elevation brings the west-coast temperature of 39° 
for January down to 29°, or 3° below freezing point, 
at the ridge of the Grampians, an elevation of almost 



44 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



3000 ft. above sea-level. There is, even at sea-level, 
a difference of from 2° to 3° between the mean annual 
temperature of the west and the east coast. 

The mean annual temperature of the county is 46° ; 
of summer 58° ; and of winter 37°. For comparison 
we give the temperature at Cowie Mains, Stonehaven, 
for four years : 



Year l.^verage 
^^^^ Maximum 


Highest Average 
Maximum Minimum 


Lowest 
Minimum 


1909 
1910 
I911 
1912 


50.08 
50.95 
56.5 
56.1 


64.58 ; 37.62 

62.2 40.45 
60.25 '■ 41 
62.16 ^ 40.8 


3179 

29-3 

31-37 

30.58 


Average 53.4 ' 62.29 39-97 

1 


■ 30.76 



During the winter the greatest amount of snow is 
from north-east and east, the most intense colds are 
from north and north-west, and the greatest amount of 
heat from south and south-west. The fact that Kin- 
cardineshire lies open and shelterless to the North Sea 
accounts for the biting winds of early spring, often 
accompanied by heavy rains. From the same source 
very often in April and May chill haars and hazes set 
in towards evening. Hoar frosts are prevalent in the 
neighbourhood of the mosses and low-lying marshy spots 
in the county, although by improved drainage and 
cultivation the area subject to this has been materially 
reduced. 



CLIMATE AND RAINFALL 45 

Kincardineshire, being much diversified into hill and 
dale, with a great variety of altitude and exposure, has 
a difference of cHmate in its various divisions. Deeside, 
for example, although in the extreme north of the 
county, is the warmest district. This arises from several 
causes. First, it has a genial southern exposure. 
Secondly, it is sheltered by a number of small hills 
rising gradually from the Dee. Its dry gravelly soil 
readily absorbs any excess of moisture, while its pine 
woods and thriving plantations moderate the climate 
as well as adorn the landscape. 

The climate of the Howe is both warm and equable. 
On the north the Howe is protected by the Grampians ; 
on the south and the east it is sheltered by the Garvock 
Heights from the full sweep of the North Sea winds in 
winter and earty spring ; at the southern extremity it 
is op@n to the genial westerly breezes of summer. 

In the heat of summer the coast is delightfully cool 
and refreshing ; but the glens and hollows of the 
Grampians are often very close and warm, though 
extremely cold in winter. 

On the whole, the climate of Kincardineshire is bracing 
and healthy, with remarkably pure and exhilarating air. 

The rainfall of the county, compared with the exces- 
sive fall on the west coast of Scotland, is relatively 
small. The mean depth in inches is 32.25, as against 
40, 45, or even 70 inches on the Atlantic coast, and 
44 for the whole country. At Stonehaven the average 
annual rainfall for the past twenty-one years has only 
been 27.13 inches ; which partly explains its popularity 




Cambridije Univ. ^rtiH 



Rainfall Map of Scotland 

{By Andrew Watt, M.A.) 



CLIMATE AND RAINFALL 



47 



as a holiday resort. During the same period the average 
for any month of the year has not been more than 
3 inches of rainfall, the average for the first four months 
of the year being 1.86 inches. An increase in elevation 
usually brings with it an increased rainfall. Thus the 



()0 in. 




Fasque 
House 



Cowie 
Mains 



1892 1302 

Rainfall Diagram 



1912 



Burn, 14 miles inland, with an elevation of about 
300 ft., has a fall of over 35 inches ; Banchory (almost 
200 ft.) 30 inches ; Fettercairn (230 ft.) 32 inches. 
The diagram, above, of the rainfall for twenty-one 
years, from 1892 to 1912 inclusive, at Cowie Mains, 
Stonehaven, and at Fasque House (330 ft. above 
sea-level), illustrates this, besides showing the annual 
variations in rainfall at each of these places ; and may 
be regarded as fairly typical of the maritime and the 
inland districts of the county. 



48 KINCARDINESHIRE 

lo. People — Race, Language, Population 

The Alexandrine geographer Ptolemy gives the 
dwellers between Dee and Tay the name of Venicones. 
These were part of the race of Picts, who occupied 
Eastern Scotland from the Pentland Firth to the Forth. 
Through the district now called Kincardineshire ran the 
dividing line between the Northern and the Southern 
Picts — ^the Grampians. Gaels also from the west found 
their way into this region. 

Traces of the Pictish and the Gaelic occupation 
are discernible in place names. " There is no 
district," says Dr Don (ArchcBological Notes on Early 
Scotland), ''in which Scottish land names may be better 
studied than in the ancient and still linked provinces of 
Angus and Mearns . . . they hold almost every type 
of Celtic and Saxon place name found in the country." 
Pit or pet and /other are Pictish, as Pitnamoon, Pitforthie, 
Pitskelly, Pitgarvie, Pitbeadly, Fordot^m, Fettercairn. Of 
Gaelic origin are names of rivers, as Esk, Bervie, A an, 
Cowie, Luther ; of mountains, as Clochnaben, Kerloch, 
Cairnmonearn, Knock, Carmont, Bruxie ; as well as 
Kincardine, -Mearns, and the names of many of the 
parishes. 

Towards the end of the fifth century the English 
invasion began. Over the North Sea strangers came 
sailing from Frisia and the adjoining districts to settle 
along the coast and originate the fishing villages. From 
these settlers, who in time pushed inland and inter- 
married with Picts and Gaels, the bulk of the people 



RACE, LANGUAGE, POPULATION 49 

have sprung. This blending has produced the robust 
type of character that distinguishes the inhabitants 
to-day. Place names indicating English settlements are 
those ending in ton, ham or hame, kirk. 

It is doubtful if any Norsemen made their homes 
here. But we find ness, from a Norse word for headland, 
in Girdleness, Greg Ness. 

The Celtic tongue formerly spoken in Kincardineshire 
retreated long ago before a variety of Northern English. 
Gaelic speaking is now extinct, though at the census 
of 191 1, 78 persons were recorded as able to speak Gaelic 
and English. 

The vernacular of the county belongs to the Northern 
Division of the Scots dialects (extending along the east 
from the Tay to Caithness), but it has a few Midland 
characteristics. In pronunciation, for example, while 
in the regions towards the Dee words like moon, school, 
good are sounded in the northern way as meen, skweel, 
gtveed, in the south they have the ui vowel sound, some- 
thing akin to the sound in French mur, -peu. The change 
of wh to / (characteristic of the old Pictish region) is in 
Kincardineshire still heard, but mostly m fa, fat, fan = 
who, what, when, and such like. The vowel sound in 
the pronunciation of one, hone, stone is as in the Aber- 
deenshire een, been, steen. Stonehaven is locally known 
as Steenhive. Unheard north of the Dee is the pro- 
nunciation of knock, knee, as tnock, tnee. This links 
the dialect with Forfarshire, and reminds one of J. M. 
Barrie's Tnowhead for Knowhead. It may be also noted 
that the forms this and that are plural as well as singular. 



50 KINCARDINESHIRE 

This steens, that beens are these stones, those bones. 
Dialect differences, however, are to a certain extent 
disappearing under the influence of schools, newspapers, 
and easy communications. 

As regards population Kincardineshire with 41,007 
inhabitants stands twenty-fourth in the list of Scottish 
counties. Since 1801, when the first census was taken, 
there has been- an increase over the whole county of 
14,659, or 55 per cent. From that date each decennial 
census has shown an increase with the exception of 
those of 1861 and 1881, when the decreases were very 
small. The relatively great increase in the 1901 returns 
(14.8 per cent.) is explained by the fact that 11,428 were 
included in the Kincardineshire returns as the popula- 
tion of Torry, which really forms part of Aberdeen city. 
With this excluded, the population of the rest of the 
county is found to have decreased by 1957, or 6.2 
per cent. 

II, Agriculture 

The high position of agriculture in Kincardineshire 
Cannot be thoroughly understood without a reference 
to the enthusiasm for improvement displayed by many 
"of the landed proprietors in the latter half of the 
eighteenth century. Of these the most remarkable 
was the famous agriculturist, Barclay of Urie, whose 
work, as pointed out in Robertson's Agricultural Survey, 
reads like a romance. In the half century that followed 
the Union of 1707, he had acquired, from residence in 
England, very advanced ideas in agricultural theory 



AGRICULTURE 51 

and practice ; and not only did he translate these into 
practical reforms, but he also infected others with his 
own keen desire for agricultural advancement. When 
he entered into possession of Urie, it was '' a complete 
waste, consisting of bogs, baulks and rigs, everywhere 
intersected with cairns of stones and moorland." And 
this description might, with even greater truth, have 
been repeated of most of the large estates in the county 
at that period. Such was his energy that in the short 
space of thirty years he materially improved 2000 acres, 
reclaimed from moorland 800 acres, and planted from 
1200 to 1500 acres with trees, an evidence of the latter 
work being still seen in the magnificent woods of Urie. 

The methods he employed were both intelligent and 
skilful. Throwing up, by trench ploughing, the incred- 
ible quantity of stones which lay in the soil, he utiUsed 
thousands and thousands of tons of these in making 
drains and dykes. The land thus improved was treated 
to a liberal supply of lime, to render it more productive 
and kindly, and better suited for growing turnips and 
artificial grasses, which he introduced into crop rotation, 
a system up to that time sparingly practised. 

The neighbouring proprietors followed his example, 
and the closing years of the eighteenth century thus 
became remarkable for agricultural progress in Kin- 
cardineshire. Since then vast changes have taken place 
in agricultural theory and practice. Communication 
between farm and market has been made much easier 
by the introduction of railways and the improvement 
of roads — a circumstance which has indirectly led 



52 KINCARDINESHIRE 

to the abolition of fairs and markets. Labour-saving 
machinery has been introduced ; scientific methods are 
now adopted in the culture, manuring, and draining of 
fields ; in the rearing, feeding, and general treatment 
of his c.tock, the farmer has at his command to-day the 
very best results of scientific experiment and research. 

In Kincardineshire mixed farming is general. On 
the hill grazings of the Grampian slopes, more attention 
is naturally paid to sheep-rearing than to tillage ; but 
even on these farms all the available land is reserved 
for cereals or grasses. 

The area of the county is 248,195 acres, of which 
127,923 acres are waste or heather, not under the 
plough, which leaves about 48 per cent, of cultivated 
land, as against 24.2 for the whole country. 

Twenty-first in area and twenty-fourth in population 
among Scottish counties, Kincardineshire stands in 
acreage under cultivation as follows : for barley 7th, 
for turnips 9th, for potatoes nth, for wheat 12th, for 
oats 1 6th. The high position in regard to turnips is 
because the county is a feeding as well as a breeding 
area for cattle and sheep. Practically one-sixteenth of 
the whole barley acreage for Scotland is in the Mearns, 
the soil of which is remarkably well adapted for the 
growth of barley. Of the 708 acres of wheat grown in 
the county in 1913 more than half was grown in the 
strong lands of the St Cyrus district, the remainder 
in the Howe, chiefly around Laurencekirk ; while on 
Deeside with its light gravelly soil it was entirely absent. 
The cultivation of oats, potatoes, and turnips is well 



AGRICULTURE 



53 



distributed over the county. Only a few acres are 
given to rye and beans. 

The county does not, hke Aberdeenshire and Forfar- 
shire, possess any distinctive breed of cattle ; but 
among the early improvers of cattle breeds were several 
notable Mearns men ; and to-day the Burn and the 
Portlethen herds are well known to agriculturists. 

The following is a comparative table of the number of 
the live stock in the county at the beginning of last 
century and in the years 1913 and 1917 : 



1807. j 1913. 



1917- 



Cattle 
Sheep 
Pigs . 
Horses 



24,825 


27,731 


24,597 


47,694 


478 


2,139 


2,579 


4,700 



24,717 

48,293 
1,816 

5,346 



Frequent mention is made of the abundance of timber 
in Kincardineshire in early days ; and the existing 
plantations show the suitability of certain districts for 
the growth of forest trees. On the Durris estate some 
of our exotic trees were first introduced, and have given 
the most remarkable results. Two species have here 
shown their superiority — the Douglas fir and the Menzies 
spruce. The former, owing to its free growth, freedom 
from disease, and wonderful adaptability to a wide 
range of soils, has proved itself capable of producing 
more volume per acre than any other species of exotic 
tree. One Durris specimen of the Douglas fir, measured 
in 1904, was no ft. high. The whole of the Deeside 




>1 

u 
O 

o 



MANUFACTURES & OTHER INDUSTRIES 55 

district is, however, well suited for the growth of timber, 
the other principal forest regions being along the southern 
spurs of the Grampians. In many cases the lower hills 
are wooded to the summits. The usual trees grown are 
Scots fir, larch, spruce, and the commoner hardwood 
trees — ash, plane, elm, beech, birch, and oak. 



12. Manufactures and Other Industries 

According to the last census returns, five out of every 
twelve of the adult population of Kincardineshire were 
directly engaged in agriculture ; but if we consider those 
indirectly engaged in it and in its aUied occupations, 
the proportion would be almost doubled. Other in- 
dustries, then, take a secondary place. In the absence 
of large towns to attract the rural population, there is 
not much concentration of labour nor any great develop- 
ment of the factory system, as in Forfarshire. 

The first linen-yarn mill in Scotland was set up at 
Bervie in 1790 ; and flax spinning, formerly an im- 
portant home industry, is still carried on at Bervie, as 
well as at Gourdon and Johnshaven. Handloom weav- 
ing was a widespread occupation in most of the towns 
and villages till steam power was introduced about 
1850, when many weavers found employment on the 
infant railways. Handloom linens are still made in 
Laurencekirk, but elsewhere the industry is extinct. 
Stonehaven has a mill for woollen fabrics and hosiery, 
and a flourishing factory for fishing-nets. 

There are distilleries at Glenury, Fettercairn, and 



56 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Auchinblae ; and a brewery at Laurencekirk. The 
development of the bicycle and motor-car industry has, 
in recent years, given employment to an increasing 
number of skilled workmen in the county. Laurence- 
kirk and Stonehaven are centres for carriage building. 
The well-wooded valley of the Dee has several sawmills, 
supplying pit-props for mining districts and timber for 
box- or case-making in Aberdeen and elsewhere. 

A manufacture, long extinct, was the making of a 
special kind of snuff-box in Laurencekirk. The pecuh- 
arity of the box was a concealed hinge and pin, invented 
by Charles Stiven about 1780. 

Kincardineshire has neither coal nor iron ore. In 
the end of the eighteenth century large quantities of 
an irregular mineral substance called " native iron " 
were, however, found in Fettercairn. Detached pieces 
of various sizes were turned up by the plough, which 
were converted into use by heating and hammering in 
the local smithies. The origin of this metallic substance, 
which was soon exhausted, was never properly accounted 
for, although many theories, fantastical and otherwise, 
were propounded. 

Granite is quarried at Cove and Hill of Fare. For- 
merly this industry seems to have been of more im- 
portance in certain parts of the country than it is now. 
At the beginning of last century, for example, about 
600 hands were employed in the Nigg quarries. From 
these, granite blocks, squared and dressed, were shipped 
at Aberdeen to pave the London streets. Sandstone is 
freely distributed over the county, and much of it is 



FISHERIES 57 

utilised for road metal. The quarries of Lauriston, 
St Cyrus, and Threewells, Bervie, supply excellent 
building-stone, which is easily wrought. 

Another industry, now entirely given up, was lime- 
stone burning. The hme from the kilns of Mathers, 
St Cyrus, was in great demand among farmers. Similar 
kilns existed in Fordoun, Fettercairn, and Banchory. 
Parts of old kilns still remain at Clatterin Brigs and 
Mains of Drumtochty. 

13. Fisheries 

Britain being an island surrounded by shallow seas 
in which fish are plentiful, it is only natural that the 
fishing industry should be one of the most important 
sources of wealth as well as of food. Fishing is carried 
on vigorously on both the west and the east coast of 
Scotland, but the east coast fishing is of far greater 
magnitude and importance than the west coast. The 
North Sea is not only an excellent fishing ground, but 
it also has splendid ports where the catches can be dis- 
posed of to advantage. The following ^returns of the 
value of the fish caught on both coasts for 191 2 bring 
out their relative importance : 

East Coast — Total value of all fish landed £2,323,580 
Orkney and Shetland — ,, ,, ,, 775,209 

West Coast — ,, ,, ,, 352,040 



Grand Total . . . . £3,450,829 

The value of shell-fish caught on the west coast, however, 
exceeds considerably that on the east coast. 



58 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



The whole country is divided into districts by the 
Fishery Board for Scotland each district being in 
charge of an officer, whose duty it is to get and to give 
information on all matters connected with the industry. 
The Kincardineshire small ports or " creeks," as they 




Herring-boats, Gourdon 



are called, are connected with the three districts of 
Aberdeen, Stonehaven, and Montrose. Downies, Port- 
lethen, and Cove are naturally linked on to Aberdeen ; 
Milton, Johnshaven, and Gourdon to Montrose. Stone- 
haven includes Cowie and Skateraw to the north, and 
Catterline and Shieldhill to the south. 

The chief kind of fish landed on the Kincardineshire 
coast in 191 2, arranged in order of market value, were 



FISHERIES 59 

herrings, codlings, haddocks, whitings, crabs, lobsters, 
which with less important varieties reached a total 
value of £21,329, almost one-eighth of this being the 
value of the shell-fish caught. The weight of all the 
fish landed (excluding shell-fish) was a little over 2000 
tons. Between five and six hundred fishermen are 
engaged in the industry, while 235 boats or vessels of 
various sizes belong to Kincardineshire. 

Since 1902, when motor power was first introduced 
into the fishing industry, the progress and increase of 
motor boats, slow at first, has been very marked. In 
this innovation, the pioneers in the county were the 
fishermen of Gourdon and Johnshaven. 

More than a century ago salmon fishing gave em- 
ployment to 135 hands, and the rental of the fishings 
amounted to £2700 a year. At present the assessable 
rental of the three districts — Bervie, North Esk, and 
Dee — is ^^27,825, about one-sixth of the rentals of the 
forty Scottish districts having boards to regulate and 
protect salmon fishing. The number of salmon caught 
annually either in the sea by a '' fixed engine " — the 
stake and bag nets — or by rod in the waters of the 
rivers of the county, cannot be determined ; but the 
weight of salmon carried by the railways in 191 2 was 
1990 tons, almost half of this quantity being caught in 
the area from Berwick to Cairnbulg Point in the north- 
east of Aberdeenshire. Of this a considerable proportion 
must have been contributed by the Kincardineshire 
salmon fishings. 



60 KINCARDINESHIRE 

14. History of the County 

The history of the county, though interesting, has 
not been much concerned with the great events of 
national history. And yet the existence in early days 
of a royal residence at Kincardine indicates a certain 
importance. Kincardine was probably chosen as a 
residence by the Pictish kings, because it commanded 
the pass of the Mounth and the road to the eastward. 
Its castle may have dated from the reign of William 
the Lyon. In mediaeval times it was one of the chain 
of strongholds guarding the route from Forfarshire over 
the Mounth to the north — Brechin, Kincardine, Loch 
Kinnord, Kildrummy, Strathbogie, Rothes, Elgin, 
Duffus, Blervie, Inverness, Dunskaith. As a royal 
residence, it grew less important w;hen the midland 
centres increased in power and influence, and it ceased 
to be the capital of the shire in 1600, when Stonehaven 
became the chief seat of local administration. 

That the Roman legions under Severus (a.d. 208) 
passed through the county is undoubted, though the 
events connected with this invasion are obscure and 
disputed. Goaded into revenge by the insurrections of 
the wild Caledonians, he set out himself with a strong 
force, and at once began the formation or the continua- 
tion of the road through the north-eastern lowlands. 
The route of the Roman armies through Strathmore 
.and the Mearns is clearly mapped out in the sites of the 
camps which run in a line from Tay to Dee. These 
were at intervals of about 12 miles, or a day's march ; 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 61 

and it is reasonable to assume that of the 50,000 soldiers 
lost by the Emperor in his Caledonian campaign, a 
certain proportion must have fallen in the conflict with 
the sturdy " Men of the Mearns." The Roman camps 
in the county are said to have been at Fordoun, and 
Raedykes, near Stonehaven, while Normandykes, in 
Peterculter, is just beyond the county border. This 
view, strongly held by some authorities, is strongly 
condemned by others. The battle of the camps will 
have to be decided, if that is now possible, by 
excavations on the sites. It is noteworthy that, in the 
Raedykes-Normandykes area, Roman relics have been 
unearthed — coins, swords, pots. 

In the wild days when Scotland was in the making, 
when Picts and Scots, Angles of Lothian and Britons 
of Strathclyde, struggled for mastery, the Mearns on 
the route from Fife and Perth to Aberdeen and Moray 
must have been the scene of many a bloody conflict. 
After the union of Picts and Scots, Kenneth MacAlpin's 
immediate successors found the Mearns a constant 
source of trouble : it was there that three kings died 
a violent death. In 954, Malcolm I. was defeated and 
sbin at Fetteresso, though some say he was killed in 
Morayland. Forty years later Kenneth III. incurred 
the enmity of FineUa, wife of the Mormaer of the Mearns, 
whose son had died in battle against the king. By her 
contrivance Kenneth was killed, but how is not certain. 
Hector Boece's account is grimly picturesque. Kenneth 
had visited FineUa' s castle at Fettercairn and was con- 
ducted into a tower, '* quhilk," to use the words of 



62 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



Bellenden's Scots version of Boece, ''was theiket with 
copper, and hewn with mani subtle mouldry of sundry 
flowers and imageries, the work so curious that it ex- 
ceeded all the stuff thereof." There stood a statue of 




Sculptured Stone, Fordoun 

[Supposed to commemorate Kenneth III.^s murder) 

the king, in his hand a gem-studded apple of gold. 
The apple (so Kenneth was told) was a gift for himself. 
Would he deign to accept it from the hand of the image ? 
He touched the apple, and at once a shower of arrows 
pierced his body. In 1094, when rivals claimed Malcolm 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 63 

Canmore's throne, the Mormaer of the Mearns, Malpeder 
MacLoen, backed Donald Bane against Duncan II. 
In a battle at Mondynes in Fordoun parish, Duncan 
died. A great stone on a knoll in a field, called Duncan's 
Shade, is believed to commemorate the spot. 

In common with the other parts of the east coast, 
Kincardineshire suffered from the inroads of the Danes 
during the tenth and the early part of the eleventh 
century. At the battle of Barry, their leader, it is said, 
was killed by the founder of the Keith family, and was 
buried at Commieston in St Cyrus. 

During the period of the Wars of Independence 
Edward I. passed through the Mearns on his triumphal 
march northwards (1296). From Montrose he directed 
his course to " Kincardine in Mearns Manor," then to 
Glenbervie Castle, where he stayed a night, next over 
the Cairn 0' Mount to " Durris manor among the 
mountains." According to Blind Harry, Wallace over- 
ran the Mearns in the following year, and penned 
4000 Englishmen within Dunnottar. 

" Wallace in fyr gert set all haistely, 
Brynt wp the kyrk, and all that was tharin, 
Atour the roch the laiff ran with gret dyn. 
Sum hang on craggis rycht dulfully to de, 
Sum lap, sum fell, sum fioteryt in the se. 
Na Sotheroun on lyff was lewyt in that hauld, 
And thaim within thai brynt in powdir cauld." 

In 1562 the battle of Corrichie was fought on the 
south-east slope of the Hill of Fare. Queen Mary was 
making a progress through the northern shires when 
the Earl of Huntly turned rebellious. The royal forces, 



64 KINCARDINESHIRE 

under the Earl of Moray, defeated the rebels at Corrichie. 
From a spot still named the Queen's Chair, tradition 
says Mary viewed the fight. 

In 1639 the Marquis of Montrose and his men passed 
through the county on their way to Aberdeen to compel 




Old Bridge of Dee 

the people of Aberdeen to sign the Covenant. The 
Earl Marischal and other " Men of the Mearns " joined 
him. During the operations round Aberdeen occurred 
the " Raid of Stanehyve." Viscount Aboyne crossed 
the Dee with 2500 men, plundered Muchalls and had 
reached Megray Hill, close to Stonehaven, when their 
opponents met them, well supplied with cannon from 
Dunnottar. Highlanders feared " the musket's mother," 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 65 

as they designated the cannon ; and those in Aboyne's 
army fled when the cannonade began. Aboyne retired 
on Aberdeen, blocking the only approach to the city — 
the narrow Bridge of Dee — with turf and stones. The 
defences were forced and Montrose captured Aberdeen. 
In 1644, after he had turned Royalist, he was again in 
the Mearns, marching from his victory at Tippermuir. 
Crossing the Dee at Mills of Drum, he took Aberdeen. 
A year later he returned and burned the House of 
Durris. At Stonehaven he did fearful havoc both by 
lire and sword, devastating houses, farms, and woods 
so that " the hart, the hind, the deer, and the roe skirlt 
at the sicht of the fire," whatever may have been 
the feelings of the sorely stricken inhabitants. Finding 
that the Earl and others had secured themselves in 
Dunnottar Castle, he pillaged and burned the village 
of Cowie, with the boats and stores, and all the lands 
of Dunnottar, Fetteresso, Glenbervie, and Arbuthnott. 
Marching along, he routed a party of the Covenanters 
at Hauikerton near Laurencekirk, and made the Howe 
" black with fire and red with blood." His last progress 
through the Mearns was in 1650, when as a prisoner, 
bound hand and foot, he was led to his execution in 
Edinburgh. 

After Charles H.'s coronation at Scone, January i, 
1 65 1, the " honours " of Scotland — ^the crown, the 
sword, the sceptre — ^had been deposited in Dunnottar. 
Dunnottar was the last stronghold to yield to Cromwell's 
troops. It was invested in the late autumn of 165 1. 
The EngUsh general knew that the Regaha had been 



66 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



taken into the castle, while George Ogilvie of Barras, 
the governor, doubted if he could hold out with his 
meagre garrison, especially as food was scanty and 
mutiny was appearing among the men. At this crisis 
Mrs Granger, wife of the minister of Kinneff, obtained 




Regalia 

{Now in Crown Room, Edinburgh Castle) 

permission to visit Mrs Ogilvy. A scheme was devised 
to save the Regalia. When Mrs Granger left, she had 
the crown concealed in her lap ; and her serving- woman 
carried the sceptre and the sword in bundles of flax. 
A touch of irony is added to the incident in the tradition 
that the English general himself gallantly assisted 
Mrs Granger to her horse. In a short time the Regalia 
lay, carefully wrapped up, under the floor of Kinneff 
church. There they remained till after the Restoration. 



HISTORY OF THE COUNTY 



67 



In 1685, during the scare of Argyll's invasion, over 
a hundred Covenanters from the south-west of Scotland 




Concealing the Regalia in Kinneff Church 

were imprisoned in Dunnottar. Men and women were 
shut up in a vault too small for them either to lie or sit. 
It had but one window, and the floor was ankle-deep in 



68 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



mud. After some time, the men and the women were 
separated, and several vaults were used instead of one. 




Imprisoned Clergyman baptising Children, Stonehaven 

From the window of the large vault twenty-five tried 
to escape down the steep chff. Two were killed ; a 
few eluded capture ; those who were unsuccessful were 



ANTIQUITIES 69 

bound and laid on their backs for several hours mth 
burning matches between their fingers. After two 
months the survivors were conveyed to Leith, where they 
could choose either to take the Test Act or be banished 
to the Plantations. Most elected to go into exile. 

Like the north-east of Scotland generally, the north 
of Kincardineshire was strongly Jacobite, due to the 
influence of the Earl Marischal. In 1715, when the 
Chevaher de St George — ^the Old Pretender — ^was passing 
south from Peterhead to join his followers, he visited 
Fetteresso, where he was proclaimed king. In 1746, 
when the Duke of Cumberland was marching to 
Aberdeen, ultimately to meet the Young Pretender at 
Culloden, he burned the Episcopal chapels at Stone- 
haven, Drumlithie, and Muchalls. The Episcopal clergy, 
as favouring the Stewarts, were frequently " rabbled " 
at this time, and some of them imprisoned. 



15. Antiquities 

The prehistoric period of man's existence is divided 
by archaeologists into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, 
and the Iron Age, according to the materials of which 
implements of industry or weapons of war were 
constructed. It must not, however, be supposed that 
bronze implements, when first fashioned, immediately 
displaced stone implements, or that weapons of iron 
at once superseded those in previous use. The different 
periods overlapped, and the introduction of the newer 
and better implements was gradual. 



70 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Of the Old Stone Age no examples have as yet been 
unearthed in Scotland ; but of the Neolithic or New 
Stone Age examples are everywhere abundant. Axes, 
arrow-heads, celts, knives of flint, whorls, beads, and 
buttons of jet are among the ancient treasures found 




Bronze Vessels from Banchory Loch 

in the county, almost every parish having contributed 
its quota. 

Specimens of the Bronze Age, which began probably 
about 1200 or 1400 years B.C. and lasted for eight or 
ten centuries, have also been found, and include spears, 
hatchets, and other implements. A fine example of a 
bronze dagger was unearthed in 1840 near the site of 
the Roman Camp at Fordoun, while similar ones have 
come from Arbuthnott and Kinneff. 

Kincardineshire, especially in the north, has numerous 
stone circles. Generally the circles consist of huge 



ANTIQUITIES 



71 



blocks of stone, irregular and of unequal size, some 
standing erect, others fallen down, arranged in a circle, 
which encloses one or even more concentric circles. 
Sometimes there is in the circle itself, or in the cir- 



JX'^Q^- 




.,_.v.vvk:.^..„^.^ 



Auchquhorthies. View from the South 

cumference, a large stone, known from the way it lies 
as the recumbent stone. It is usually on the south 
side of the circle, and is supposed to have been an altar 
stone. The circumference of the circles varies a good 
deal. The diameter of those in Banchory-Devenick is 




Auchquhorthies. Recumbent Stone 

from 30 to 100 ft., the largest being the well-known 
circle at Auchquhorthies. This one presents some 
features of interest. The recumbent stone, 9 ft. 9 ins. 
long, 5 ft. high, and about i foot wide across 
the top, weighs about io| tons. It lies a considerable 
distance from the standing stones. The stones in the 



72 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



northern arc are small in comparison with the others. 
The circles are all composed of the blue granite common 
to the district, and nearly all have their recumbent 
stone on the south or south- 
west, while in more than half 
the circles relics have been found. 
What these circles were used for 
is still a matter of doubt. But 
since urns and calcined bones 
have usually been discovered in 
them, it is likely that they 
were burial places of the Bronze 
Age. 

Other places of sepulture are 
the mounds or cairns under which 
have been found stone cists or 
coffins containing skeleton re- 
mains, along with urns, cups, 
beads, rings, arrow-heads, and 
other relics. In Banchory, Stra- 
chan, Marykirk, Kinneff, and 
elsewhere, these have been dis- 
covered, bearing mute but ex- 
pressive testimony to the ideas 
which prehistoric man had of religion and of a future 
state. 

At Greencairn Castle near Fettercairn are still to be 
seen traces of what is supposed to have been a vitrified 
fort. It was oval in form, and, like other strongholds 
of the same character, was surrounded by two ramparts, 




Ogham Stone, 
Auquhollie 



ANTIQUITIES 73 

built of stone, without any lime or mortar, and without 
the least mark of any tool, although under the founda- 
tion wood ashes were got. Evidence of vitrification of 
the walls was obtained by Sir Walter Scott in 1796. 

Of sculptured stones in the county the most inter- 
esting and most ancient is the Ogham stone at Auqu- 




Surface of Crannog, Loch of Banchory 

hollie, near Stonehaven, one of the fourteen to be found 
in Scotland. The writing is in some parts much worn 
and doubtful, but it has been deciphered and translated 
as follows : 

" F[a] dh Donan ui te [? n] 
[Here] rests [the body] of Donan, of the race of . . ." 

There are three Scottish saints of that name, one being 
connected with Aberdeenshire, 



74 KINCARDINESHIRE 

When, about sixty years ago, the Loch of Banchory, 
or Leys, in Banchory-Ternan, was drained, an island 
was found to be artificial — a specimen of the old Celtic 
lake dwelling or crannog. It rested on trunks of oak 
and birch trees laid alternately, the spaces being filled 
up with earth and stones, and the island was surrounded 
with oak piles to prevent it from being washed away. 

There are three interesting examples of old crosses 
in the county. That at Fettercairn, the old market 
cross of Kincardine, surmounts an octagonal flight of 
steps, and has an iron rivet to which criminals in olden 
days used to be chained by the jougs. The base and 
shaft of the old cross of Stonehaven stands beside the 
steeple (itself a picturesque Dutch-like erection dating 
from 1797). Li the square of Bervie is a cross, about 
14 ft. high, surrounded by a flight of steps, and sup- 
posed to be of considerable antiquity. The county has 
numerous holy wells, none of them of great importance. 
Two interesting cup-marked stones are preserved — one 
at Cowie House, and the other at Dunnottar Manse. 

16. Architecture — (a) Ecclesiastical 

Though Scotland cannot claim to have originated a 
new and distinctive style of architecture, yet it can show 
a continuous series of ecclesiastical buildings, beginning 
with the simplest and rudest of monkish cells, extending 
through all the periods of mediaeval art. Of church 
architecture, however, as we now understand it, there 
was none during the first seven centuries. It really 



76 KINCARDINESHIRE 

began about the tenth century, when the round towers 
first appeared. 

Of ecclesiastical buildings now in ruins Kincardine- 
shire has some very interesting examples. Cowie 
Church, or more correctly the Chapel' of St Mary, 
picturesquely situated a little north of Stonehaven 



Arbuthnott Church 

Bay, is an example of a simple oblong structure in the 
first pointed style. There are three fine lancet-pointed 
windows of the thirteenth century in the east gable, 
with a square window in the west. The chapel was 
consecrated in 1276, and was unroofed by ecclesiastical 
authority shortly before the Reformation on account 
of scandals. 

At the Kirktown of Fetteresso the roofless ruins 
of the old church of Fetteresso stand upon a knoll 




O X 

O </3 

PQS 

ll 






78 KINCARDINESHIRE 

which is one of the oldest ecclesiastical sites in the 
Mearns. The ancient church was dedicated to a 
Celtic saint of the sixth century named Caran. The 
pointed doorway on the north side and parts of the 
adjacent walls belonged to the church which was con- 
secrated by David de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews, 
in 1246. Its belfry is a good example of the belfries 
to be seen in the north-east of Scotland. 

The ruined church of St Fittick, about a mile south- 
east of Aberdeen, stands on the site of an early church 
which was granted by William the Lyon to his favourite 
Abbey of Arbroath, and remained attached to it till the 
Reformation. 

The parish church of Arbuthnott, dedicated to 
St Ternan, is undoubtedly the most interesting piece 
of ecclesiastical architecture in Kincardineshire. One 
of the few existing pre-Reformation churches in the 
north of Scotland, it was consecrated in 1242 by David 
de Bernham, Bishop of St Andrews. It is long and 
narrow, consisting of an aisleless nave and chancel, and 
what is known as the Arbuthnott aisle, which projects 
from the south side of the chancel. The Arbuthnott 
aisle — ^the most striking feature of the exterior — was 
built in 1505, the west gable of the nave with the circular 
bell- turret being added at the same time. The aisle 
is in two stories, the lower a vaulted chapel with an 
apsidal termination to the south. Within the apse hes 
a monumental effigy, probably that of James Arbuthnott, 
who died in 1521. On the side of the base are four 
shields, bearing the names of Stuart, Arbuthnott, and 




(U 

boo 






80 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Douglas. The chancel is sharply pointed. Three fine 
stained-glass windows adorn the east gable of the 
chancel. The church was skilfully restored in 1890, after 
being accidently burned the previous year. About 1475 
the vicar of the parish, James Sibbald, produced three 
service-books, to which the name of Arbuthnott is 
attached — a Missal, a Book of Hours, and a Psalter. 

Another interesting church, which originally dates 
from the thirteenth century, is that of Kinneff. The 
present church, which has suffered from various restora- 
tions, has in the east gable a small Norman window, and 
five Gothic windows in the south wall. The historical 
interest of the church is even greater than its architec- 
•tural interest. For it contains several mural monu- 
ments, one to Rev. James Granger and his wife Christian 
Fletcher, who preserved the " honours " of Scotland. 

The parish church of Fordoun, a prominent object 
in the landscape, with its handsome square Gothic tower, 
nearly 100 ft. high, was erected in 1830, and is the 
successor of a very old church, which was demolished- 
in 1787. Beside it is the small chapel of St Palladius, 
a modern restoration ; but the traditions regarding 
this saint and his connection with the place as exempli- 
fied in chapel, well, and annual fair which bear his name, 
go back to the fifth century. Within the chapel is a 
sculptured stone which, according to Professor Stuart, 
is intended to commemorate the death of Kenneth III. 

At Blairs, in Maryculter parish, the Roman Catholic 
College of St Mary stands conspicuous on a slope over- 
looking the valley of the Dee. The estate of Blairs was 




Blairs Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots 



82 KINCARDINESHIRE 

once the property of the Knights Templars. The 
college possesses a famous portrait of Mary Queen of 
Scots — an excellent likeness. It may have been painted 
from a miniature given by Mary on the morning of her 
execution, to Elizabeth Curie, one of her attendants, 
who bequeathed miniature and portrait to the Scots 
College at Douai. In the days of the French Revolution 
the portrait lay hid in a chimney to save it from the fury 
of the mob. In the background of the picture, left, 
there is a sketch of the execution ; and, right, Elizabeth 
Curie appears. 



17. Architecture — {b) Castellated 

The architecture of a country is a genuine record 
of its development and progress in civilisation. In the 
rude Scotland of early times comfort and convenience 
were sacrificed for strength and protection from enemies : 
hence the walls of enormous thickness, the strong gates, 
the moat, and the ramparts of earth and stone char- 
acterising the earliest buildings that survive. Previous 
to the Norman Conquest, the building of castles with 
stone and lime was not practised, the earhest fortifica- 
tions being constructed with earth mounds and wooden 
palisades on a turf wall. The position of many of the 
old castles shows that up to the thirteenth century, if 
not later, the builders of the castles trusted more to 
water than to hill for their defence. The steep chff, 
facing and perhaps projecting into the sea, almost 
surrounded by the breaking waves, and connected only 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 83 

by a narrow pathway to the mainland, was a typical 
and well-chosen spot on which to erect a safe resort in 
time of danger. The Kaim of Mathers near St Cyrus, 
now a roofless relic of the stronghold of the Barclays, 
consisted of a tower 40 ft. square and four stories high, 
perched on the top of a precipitous rock jutting out 
into the sea. It was built, after the murder of Melville 
the Sheriff (1420), by the laird of Mathers, who preferred 
to stay at home, and 

" Buyld a lordlie Kaim, 
All on the stonie rock, 
Which mote defie the sovereign's arms 
Or eke the tempest's shock." 

The general appearance of the thirteenth-century 
castles was that of a huge fortified enclosure. The plan 
is usually quadrilateral, but more or less irregular to 
suit the site, Cosmo Irmes says that Kincardine Castle, 
near Fettercairn, was built in the thirteenth century, 
though it doubtless occupied the site of several previous 
royal palaces of wood and wattle, where Pictish and 
Scottish kings held state. The castle was fully 130 ft. 
square, and had walls of enormous thickness, which were 
surrounded by marshes across which no enemy could 
safely venture. 

During the fourteenth century, after the Wars of 
Independence, there was very little castle-building in 
Scotland. Even had the resources of the country been 
greater than they were, the nobles were not encouraged 
by King Robert Bruce to build strong mansions, as 
those were liable to be captured by the Enghsh, and 



84 KINCARDINESHIRE 

the King's policy was rather to starve the enemy out 
of the country than to fight him. The model of the 
castle still remained the square tower or Norman keep 
with very thick walls, defended from a parapeted path 
round the top of the tower. Gradually the simple 
keep was extended by adding on a small wing at one 
corner, making the ground plan of the whole building 
take the form of the letter L. The entrance was then 
placed as a rule at the re-entering angle. The ground 
floor was vaulted and used for a store-room. Access 
from one story to another was by a narrow corkscrew 
stair at one corner in the thick wall. With the outside 
entrance raised above the ground level and reached only 
by a removable ladder, such towers could resist siege 
and fire, and even when taken, could not be easily 
damaged. 

The tower of Benholm, now a part of Benholm Castle, 
is a fine example of the fifteenth-century keep. It is 
crowned with a parapet and angle bartisans, and has 
on its top a square cape house or watch turret. This is 
a primitive indication of the various additions which 
were sometimes made on the parapets by raising them 
and covering them in with roofs, a feature that may 
be seen in several of the later mansions of the Mearns. 
Fiddes Castle, formerly a dower-house of the Arbuthnott 
family, is a very fine example of the sixteenth-century 
castle. The general arrangement is that of the L plan, 
but the staircase is projected in a large circular tower 
beyond the corner of the main building. Another 
circular tower occupies the corresponding angle on the 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 85 

opposite side of the main building, and a third is cor- 
belled out from the first floor on the north side. 

In the latter half of the sixteenth century various 
influences contributed to a decided change in castellated 
architecture. With the introduction of artillery the 
whole idea of defence became altered. Safety from 
sudden attack was of more consequence than the idea 
of making the castles impregnable : shelter from the 
elements was of as great importance as shelter from 
the enemy. More attention was paid to ornamental 
detail, and internal comfort and convenience. The 
grim fortress was gradually transformed into the county 
mansion, although the keep or quadrangular plan was 
still adhered to. The change was of course gradual. 
The castles were built round a courtyard, but turrets 
v/ere placed at every angle of the building. The lower 
walls were severely plain. The roofs became high- 
pitched with picturesque chimneys, dormer windows, 
and crow-stepped gables. The nobles, enriched by the 
revenues of the church lands secularised after the 
Reformation, were enabled either to build new castles 
or extend the old. The effect of the Union in 1603, 
after which many of the nobility followed the court to 
London, was also seen in the higher standard of domestic 
comfort and house accommodation which imitated 
that south of the Border. These features are manifest 
in Crathes Castle, which externally presents a wonderful 
cluster of pinnacles and turrets at the roof above a plain 
building with rounded corners below. The corbelling 
and carving are of a very elaborate and ornate character. 



86 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



Gargoyles at impossible places, applied as mere orna- 
ments, also occur in profusion. In the east wall over 
the doorway, which still presents its original iron " yett," 
are two shields containing the Burnett arms with the 




Crathes Castle 

dates of the erection and completion of the castle, 
1553 and 1596. Balbegno Castle is another interesting 
example of a castle on the L plan, into which various 
modifications have been introduced. As at Crathes, the 
whole of the re-entering angle is filled up, instead of 
a turret being inserted in the angle. This is to give 
provision for a wide staircase to the first floor. It is 
one of the few castles in Scotland which have a ribbed 




Part of Vaulted Roof, Balbegno Castle 



88 KINCARDINESHIRE 

and groined vault over the hall. The compartments 
of the vaulting are painted with the armorial bearings 
of some of the principal families in Scotland. 

Muchalls Castle is a well-preserved specimen of the 
Scottish mansion of the beginning of the seventeenth 
century. It is designed on a plan of buildings sur- 
rounding a courtyard, the north, the east, and part of 
the west side of the square being occupied with the 
house, and the remaining side enclosed with a wall. 
The details of the internal decorations are in the 
Renaissance style, which began to assert itself in Scot- 
land early in the seventeenth century. The ceiling of 
the dining-room is the great feature of the house. It 
is ornamented with ribbed plaster work, the panels 
being filled in with the heads of Roman emperors, 
classical heroes, and Scripture characters. 

Apart from its romantic and historical associations, 
Dunnottar Castle is of great architectural interest, for. 
it exhibits the various changes which took place in the 
disposition of buildings and defences, as well as in the 
domestic arrangements, from the fifteenth to the seven- 
teenth century. Dunnottar signifies a strong promon- 
tory, and the situation justifies the name. The castle 
stands on the platform of an isolated rock washed on 
three sides by the sea. The perpendicular cliffs rise to 
a height of i6o ft. except at the narrow strip of land 
on the level of the seashore, by which it is joined to the 
mainland. The area of the site is about 3J acres. A 
very short steep path leads to the gateway, on the right 
of which is " Benholm's Lodgings," a five-storied 



ARCHITECTURE— CASTELLATED 



89 



building, furnished with three tiers of loopholes. A 
strong portcullis had closed down the gateway, within 
which, to left and right respectively, are the guard-room 
and the prison, the whole of the open approach being 
effectively commanded from the buildings above and 




Dunnottar from the South 



from the parapets. The oldest building is undoubtedly 
the keep or tower at the south-west corner of the plat- 
form, which dates from the early part of the fifteenth 
century. The plan presents the usual arrangement of 
the period, the L shape, four stories in height, and with 
walls 5 ft. thick. Further to the east is an extensive 
range containing stables and the Priest's House. This 
part belongs to the latter half of the sixteenth century. 
The church is next in order. The original church, con- 



90 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



secrated in 1246, stood on this site. To it the lower 
part of the south wall belongs, but the rest of the 




Entrance to Dunnottar Castle 

{Benholm's Lodgings on right) 

building was reconstructed early in the sixteenth 
century. Part of the church must, therefore, be the 
oldest-built work in the castle. The walls were at one 
time ornamented with monuments to the Keiths, but 



ARCHITECTURE— DOMESTIC 91 

they have all disappeared. The latest addition to the 
castle is the projecting wing at the north-east corner of 
the quadrangle. Its ground floor contains a vaulted 
apartment 58 ft. long and 15 ft. wide. Originally intended 
as a store-room, it gained an unenviable notoriety as the 
prison of the Covenanters, or Whigs' Vault. There are 
curious niches in the walls, apparently intended for the 
insertion of prisoners' hands when torture was applied 
for misdemeanours. .Below the Whigs' Vault is a 
smaller one, where, it is said, no fewer than forty-two of 
the Covenanters were confined for a time. From the 
Whigs' Vault, by the great staircase, we reach the 
dining-room, the windows of which give a wide prospect 
of sea and wild cliffs. 



18. Architecture — {c) Domestic 

The mansions of the Mearns are not only numerous, 
but in many respects remarkably elegant structures. 
Several are of ancient foundation, and have been re- 
modelled or enlarged as the demands for convenience 
and domestic comfort grew with the improving spirit 
of the times. Many of the sites are well-chosen either 
for beauty or, as in the case of older castles, for defence 
or observation. Of the castles on or near the coast the 
most interesting historically is Fetteresso Castle, for- 
merly the home of the Earls Marischal. It was burned 
by the Marquis of Montrose in 1645, and rebuilt in 1671 ; 
but a large part of it is only about one hundred years old. 
After landing at Peterhead, in 1715, the Chevalier went 



ARCHITECTURE— DOMESTIC 93 

to Fetteresso, where he was warmly received and 
hospitably entertained for more than a week. At the 
door of the castle he was proclaimed James VIII. by 
the Earl Marischal. The castle stands in the Carron 
valley near Stonehaven. In the same locality is Urie 



Old House of Urie 

{Friends' meeting-place on right) 

House, a fine mansion in the Elizabethan style, amid 
some 700 acres of well-wooded gromids along the Cowie 
Water, Urie belonged to the Marischal family, and 
then to the Barclays, of Quaker, farming, and pedestrian 
fame. 

Further south on the coast there is a succession of 
mansions. Hallgreen Castle, overlooking Bervie Bay, 
dates from the sixteenth century, but has modern 



94 KINCARDINESHIRE 

additions. Brotherton Castle, a little to the north of 
Johnshaven, is a fine building in the baronial style. 
Lauriston Castle, occupying a picturesque situation in 
the " Den " of the same name, was built by the Straitons 
in the thirteenth century. Alexander Strait on, " the 
knicht of Lauriston," was one of the 500 knights slain 
at Harlaw in 141 1. Ecclesgreig Castle, on a rising 
ground to the north of St Cyrus village, is modern. 
Its steep-pitched roof and crow-stepped gables, sur- 
mounted by conical turrets, give it a graceful and 
imposing appearance. The surrounding policies are 
tastefully laid out. 

The Burn House, built in 1791 by Lord Adam Gordon, 
is romantically situated on the east bank of the North 
Esk. The house, itself a massive but somewhat plain 
structure, is surrounded by " woods, walks, and scenes 
of beauty," as picturesque as any in the county, forming 
a striking contrast to the " dreary desert " the spot 
was said to be towards the end of the eighteenth century. 
Fasque House, a splendid pile built in 1809 i^ "the English 
baronial style, is a very commodious mansion, and from 
its elevated situation commands an extensive and mag- 
nificent view of the Howe. It is the residence of Sir 
John Gladstone, the nephew of the late Right Hon. 
W. E. Gladstone, who as a young man, frequently re- 
sided here. Drumtochty Castle, a fine Gothic building, 
occupies an ideal site on the richly wooded bank of the 
Luther, opposite Strathfinella Hill. Monboddo House 
is more interesting historically than architecturally, . as 
the birthplace and residence of Lord Monboddo. 



COMMUNICATIONS— ROADS, ETC\ 95 

Dr Johnson thus refers to the visit which he paid to 
Monboddo in 1773 : ' ' Early in the afternoon Mr Boswell 
observed that we were no great distance from the house 
of Lord Monboddo. The magnetism of his conversation 
easily drew us out of our way, and the entertain- 
ment which we received would have been a sufficient 
recompense for a greater deviation." Glenbervie 
House, on the north side of the Bervie Water, was an 
ancient seat of the Douglases, and the oldest part dates 
back to the twelfth century at least. Other mansions 
in the Howe district are Inglismaldie House in Marykirk, 
one of the seats of the Earl of Kintore ; Fettercairn 
House, dating from 1666, but at various times consider- 
ably improved and enlarged ; Thornton Castle, also a 
very old building, about two miles west of Laurencekirk ; 
Arbuthnott House, on the left bank of the Bervie Water, 
the seat of the old family of Arbuthnott. 

Of the larger mansions on Deeside, Kincausie House, 
and Durris House are the oldest. The former, beauti- 
fully situated on the right bank of the Dee about seven 
miles from Aberdeen, is surrounded by fine old timber. 
Durris House, an elegant and very substantially built 
modern mansion, was erected close to the site of the 
old castle of Dores, a residence of Alexander III. 

19. Communications — Roads and Rail= 
ways 

Kincardineshire being on the direct route between 
the north and the south of Scotland, the earhest of the 



96 KINCARDINESHIRE 

main roads in the county were avenues, running gener- 
ally north and south, and leading to the Highlands and 
Lowlands. Where much of the land was ill-drained and 
boggy, the making of suitable roads was often a difficult 
and tedious matter. The high roads, being the dry 
roads, had perforce at first to be followed, while the 
straight line as the shortest distance between any two 
given points was, where practicable, preferred. Until 
well after the Union of 1707, the roads in Kincardine- 
shire were, • as elsewhere in the north of Scotland, in 
a very neglected state. Where wheeled vehicles were 
non-existent or few, wide, well-made roads were of little 
consequence. Bridle paths sufficed for the needs of 
the pack-horse that plodded along by ways none too 
safe by day or night. 

The Roman road from Tay to Dee is undoubtedly the 
oldest, and its course can be generally traced in the line 
of the Roman camps, usually a day's march apart. 
Starting probably at Ardoch in Perthshire, and con- 
tinued through the northern district of Forfarshire, it 
entered the county at Kingsford (a modern name) in 
a north-easterly direction between the parishes of 
Marykirk and Fettercairn ; whence the route was direct 
to the camp at the Mains of Fordoun. From this it was 
continued to the camp at Raedykes near Stonehaven, 
and thence to Normandykes, Peterculter, where it 
crossed the Dee. At Marykirk a short branch, probably 
not, however, a Roman road, struck to the left, leading 
to the royal palace of Kincardine. From that point it 
was continued to the pass of Cairn O' Mount, which in 



98 KINCARDINESHIRE 

later days echoed, not to the tramp of the Roman 
legions, but to the tread of the red-coated regiments 
of the second King George, under that renowned road- 
maker General Wade, the last of whose military roads 
this' was. From the Roman road, or its successors, 
numerous cross-roads struck off on each side leading 
to hill and sea. The hill roads were utilised by the 
Highland drovers on their way to the great annual 
trysts and fairs south of the Grampians, while the roads 
that led from the numerous small shipping ports were 
convenient for transporting either coal or lime into the 
interior. 

For the first three-quarters of the last century the 
roads were divided into two classes — the turnpike or 
toll, and the statute labour roads. The former were 
originally made by subscription, and partly upheld by 
toUs, while the latter were made and upheld from 
highway and bridge moneys paid by heritors and others. 
When the Roads and Bridges Act of 1879 came into 
force, a road rate was imposed on all householders ; 
and since then a gradual improvement has been effected 
on the roads so that they are now, as a rule, very suitable 
for the needs of modern travelling. 

The main road through the county leads from Brechin 
by North Water Bridge, west of Marykirk, to Laurence- 
kirk, Fordoun, Stonehaven, and Aberdeen. This is 
the main route for traffic from Edinburgh, through 
Strathmore and the Howe of the Mearns. A parallel 
road to this, but running along the base of the hills, 
passes through Fettercairn and the beautiful Glen of 



COMMUNICATIONS— ROADS, ETC. 99 

Drumtochty, thence through Fordoun, Glenbervie, and 
Fetteresso parishes to Stonehaven, where it joins the 
Great North Road. From Montrose a splendid turnpike 
road runs close to the coast through St Cyrus, Bervie, 
and Stonehaven, where it also meets the main road. 
These three parallel roads are connected by numerous 
cross-roads, which give free access to all parts of the 
county. One of the best roads in the county is that along 
the south side of the Dee from Aberdeen to Maryculter, 
Durris, Banchory, and Strachan. From the coast various 
cross-roads connect with this road— the well-known 
'' Slug " road from Stonehaven going through Rickarton 
and Durris to Banchory ; another through Cookney, 
Netherley, and Maryculter to the Dee valley ; and a 
third from Portlethen through Fetteresso, Maryculter, 
Durris, and Strachan. 

The county has no canals, though towards the end of 
the eighteenth century there was much talk of construct- 
ing one through the Howe of the Mearns and Strath- 
more to the Tay. The general opinion on this is pithily 
summed up by Robertson {Agricultural Survey) : " There 
seems, in fact, to be very little to urge against the 
practicability of the thing, and nothing perhaps against 
its expediency, but that it would be of no use. Nobody 
would think of conveying goods 40 or 50 miles by water 
who had it in his power to bring them directly to market 
by an easy land carriage, of less than the fourth part of 
the distance and time." 

The railways in the county run practically parallel 
and contiguous to the main roads. They belong to 



100 KINCARDINESHIRE 

three railway companies — the Caledonian, the North 
British, and the Great North of Scotland. The 
northern section of the Caledonian, first called the 
Aberdeen, and afterwards the Scottish North-Eastern, 
was opened throughout in 1850. It enters the county 
by a viaduct of thirteen spans over the North Esk near 
Marykirk Station, and running northward past Laurence- 
kirk, Fordoun, and Drumlithie, where the highest point 
on the section is, reaches through heavy cuttings the 
sea at Stonehaven, after which it follows the coast 
to Aberdeen. A section of the North British * Railway, 
about 14 miles long, runs from Montrose along the sea 
to Bervie, at present the terminus, although proposals 
have been made to connect it with Stonehaven by a 
light railway. From Kinnaber Junction, two miles north 
of Montrose, where the North British and Caledonian 
main lines connect, the former company possesses 
certain running powers over the Caledonian system to 
Aberdeen. The Deeside railway, owned by the Great 
North of Scotland Company, runs from Aberdeen along 
the north side of the Dee. It enters the county near 
Crathes Station, 14 miles from Aberdeen, and leaves 
it close to Glassel Station. 

20. Administration and Divisions 

Sheriffs were appointed in the twelfth century, but 
it was not till the fourteenth that the office became 
hereditary in Scotland. In Kincardineshire the Keiths 
were the hereditary sheriffs for some two hundred years 



ADMINISTRATION AND DIVISIONS 101 

from about 1350. Their jurisdiction probably did not 
coincide with the present boundaries, but their power 
and influence in the county was undoubted. It would 
appear also that in the Mearns the offices of sheriff and 
forester were often united. The royal forester had 
jurisdiction in offences against the forest laws, and 
received certain payments or privileges for superin- 
tending the hunting domains, such as Cowie and Durris. 
In addition to the sheriff, we hear also of thanes, of 
whom there were at least seven in the Mearns. Origin- 
ally stewards over the royal lands," they ultimately 
became hereditary tenants of the King. Those heredi- 
tary powers were abolished after the " Forty-five," the 
sheriff, an advocate by profession, henceforth holding 
his office direct from the Crown. 

Besides the Lord- Lieutenant, who may be regarded 
as the head of the county, but whose duties are now 
largely ceremonial, there are in Kincardineshire Deputy- 
Lieutenants ; but the real executive power is vested in 
the salaried Sheriff, assisted in his judicial and adminis- 
trative capacity by a Sheriff-Substitute. The Sheriff- 
Principal of Aberdeenshire is Sheriff of Kincardine and 
also of Banff. 

The chief administrative body in the county is the 
County Council, which came into existence in 1889. 
It is presided over by a chairman chosen from amongst 
the elected members, who is also designated convener 
of the county. Representatives come from each of 
the nineteen parishes or electoral divisions in the 
county, these again being grouped into five districts : 



102 KINCARDINESHIRE 

(i) Laurencekirk district, with four electoral divisions ; 
(2) St Cyrus district, with three ; (3) Stonehaven dis- 
trict, with five ; (4) Lower Deeside, with four ; and 
(5) Upper Deeside, with three. Each of the five districts 
has a committee consisting of the County Councillors for 
the electoral divisions of the district and of representa- 
tives selected from the various parish councils. Roads 
and bridges, public health, diseases of animals, pro- 
tection of wild birds, valuation, finance, and the general 
administrative oversight of the county are under the 
control of the County Council. 

By the Education Act of 1872, School Boards in every 
parish had the charge of education ; but the Education 
Act of 1918 has now established an Education Authority 
for the whole county to control both primary and 
secondary schools. 

The civil parishes, each with its council to carry out 
the provisions of the Poor Law and other duties, number 
nineteen : Arbuthnott, Banchory-Devenick, Banchory- 
Ternan, Benholm, Bervie, Dunnottar, Durris, Fetter- 
cairn, Fetteresso, Fordoun, Garvock, Glenbervie, Kinneff, 
Laurencekirk, Maryculter, Marykirk, Nigg, St Cyrus, 
Strachan. The ecclesiastical parishes are twenty-two : 
all the civil parishes and the quoad sacra parishes of 
Cookney, Portlethen, and Rickarton. Fifteen of these 
form the Presbytery of Fordoun, while five are in the 
Presbytery of Aberdeen and two in the Presbytery of 
Kincardine O' Neil. 

The county now unites with the Western Division of 
Aberdeenshire in returning one member to Parhament. 



ROLL OF HONOUR 103 

Bervie, a very ancient burgh, sent representatives to 
the Scottish Parhament from 1612, at least, down to 
1707. Under the Act of Union it was classed with 
Aberdeen, Arbroath, Brechin, and Montrose — a group 
returning one member to the British Parliament. Bervie 
is still one of the Montrose Burghs, Aberde n has two 
members of its own. 



21. Roll of Honour 

Though small in size, Kincardineshire has a remark- 
able muster-roll of notables whose reputation is by no 
means local. 

To begin, it claims to be the cradle of the family 
to which Robert Burns belonged. For many genera- 
tions Glenbervie had been the home of the family of 
Burness, as the name was invariably spelled ; and it 
was from Clochnahill, near Stonehaven, that the poet's 
father set out to better his fortunes in the south. It 
was from his father that Robert Burns inherited his 
brain-power, his hypochondria, and his general superi- 
ority. Robert's cousin, John Burness (1771-1826), was 
author of Thrummy Cap, which Burns thought '' the 
best ghost story in the language." 

Sir Walter Scott's connection with the county, though 
not so close or direct, is nevertheless interesting. 
Readers of the Waverley Novels will remember that it 
was in the churchyard of Dunnottar that Scott in 1796 
first saw Robert Paterson, the original of Old Mortality, 
" engaged in his daily task of cleaning and repairing 



104 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



the ornaments and epitaphs upon the tomb " of the 
Covenanters. Scott, however, became the begetter of one 
of the best-known men of the Mearns, the renowned 
mercenary soldier Captain Dugald Dalgetty, whose 
" natural hereditament of Drumthwacket " was " the 
long waste moor so called, that lies five miles south of 




Burying-place of Burns 's Ancestors 



Aberdeen," and who was naturally an alumnus of 
Marischal College. 

Whether as soldiers, administrators, courtiers, or 
patriots, various members of the Keith family wielded 
great influence, not only in the county but also through- 
out the country, from the eleventh century to 1718, 
when the last Earl Marischal's estates were forfeited to 
the Crown. This Earl's younger brother, James Keith, 
after mihtary service with the Spaniards and the 



ROLL OF HONOUR 105 

Russians, went to Prussia, where Frederick the Great 
at once made him field-marshal, and relied greatly on 




George Keith, Fifth Earl Marischal 

{Founder, 1593, of Marischal College, Aberdeen) 

his mihtary genius. In 1758 Keith was killed at Hoch- 
kirch while for the third time charging the Austrians. 

The Falconers, whose name came from the Crown 
office they held, were connected with the county in the 
twelfth century. Three of them became senators of 
the College of Justice, or Lords of Session. One of these 



106 KINCARDINESHIRE 

was deprived of his seat, 1649-1660, for "malignancy," 
which drew from Drummond of Hawthornden a sonnet 




Field-Marshal James Keith 

{From a painting in the Burgh Council Chamber, Stonehaven) 

in praise of his character and a lament for his misfortunes. 

One would like to head the list of historians with the 

name of John of Fordun, author of the important 

Scotichronicon ; but that he was born in the parish of 



ROLL OF HONOUR 107 

Fordoun is merely an inference from his name. He 
flourished in the fourteenth century. Cosmo Innes 
(1798-1874), a native of Durris, was trained as a lawyer. 
In 1846 he was appointed Professor of Constitutional 
Law and History in . Edinburgh University. He is 
best known for his two historical works — Scotland in 
the Middle Ages, and Sketches of Early Scotch History. 
Dr Cramond, a voluminous writer of histories dealing 
chiefly vvdth the north-^ast of Scotland, belonged to 
Fettercairn. 

James Burnett (1714-1799), Lord Monboddo, was 
famous not merely as a lawyer but also as a litterateur. 
He first came into prominence as counsel for the 
Douglases in the Douglas case, and in 1767 he was 
made a Lord of Session, a position he held for thirty 
years. His Origin and Progress of Language, in which 
he anticipated the Darwinian theory, is very learned 
and acute, but very eccentric. Lord Neaves, a versatile 
successor in the Court of Session, sings of him : 

" His views, when forth at first they came, 
Appeared a Httle odd O ! 
But now we've notions much the same, 
We're back to old Monboddo. 

" Though Darwin now proclaims the law, 
And spreads it far abroad O ! 
The man that first the secret saw. 
Was honest old Monboddo." 

Lord Gardenstone, another Lord of Session, was like 
Monboddo, somewhat eccentric, but did much for the 
village of Laurencekirk, which he got erected into a 



108 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



Burgh of Barony. Still another judge was Sir John 
Wishart, who died in 1576, a native of Fordoun. He 






James Burnett, Lord Monboddo 



was a comrade of Erskine of Dun in the days of the 
Reformation, and fought at Corrichie. 

Of ecclesiastical dignitaries the county can show a 



ROLL OF HONOUR 



109 



generous muster-roll, an outstanding feature being the 
relatively large number of bishops. One was Bishop 
Wishart of St Andrews. Bishop Mitchell, 'a native of 




Dr Thomas Reid 



Garvock, was deprived of his office in 1638, and during 
his exile in Holland worked as a clockmaker. Bishop 
Keith (1681-1757) was born at Uras, and held the See 
of Fife. He compiled a valuable history of Scottish 
affairs from the beginnings of the Reformation to Mary's 
departure for England in 1568. Gilbert Burnett, Bishop 



110 KINCARDINESHIRE 

of Salisbury and friend of William III., was a descendant 
of the Burnetts of Crathes. Alexander Arbuthnott 
(1538-1583)^ son of Andrew Arbuthnott of Pitcarles, 
became Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, in 1569, 
and soon after received the living of Arbuthnott. Dr 
James Sibbald, who died about 1650, was a Mearns man. 
He was minister of St Nicholas, Aberdeen, and a stout 
opponent of the Covenant. Equally stout on the other 
side was Rev. Andrew Cant (1590-1663), a native of 
Strachan. Another native of Strachan was Dr Thomas 
Reid (1710-1796), parish minister of New Machar in 
Aberdeenshire and Professor of Philosophy at King's 
College, Aberdeen. He wrote a renowned book — 
Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of 
Common Sense — and created the Scottish school of 
philosophy opposed to David Hume. He succeeded 
Adam Smith in Glasgow. 

In literature the greatest name is Dr John Arbuthnot 
(1667-1735), son of an Episcopalian clergyman at 
Arbuthnott. One of the Queen Anne wits and the 
friend of Swift and Pope, he wrote the History of John 
Bull and was the chief author of the Memoirs of Martinus 
Scrihlerus. '' The Doctor," said Swift, " has more wit 
than we all have, and his humanity is equal to his wit." 
Dr James Beattie (1735-1803), a native of Laurencekirk, 
and schoolmaster of Fordoun, was appointed to the 
Chair of Moral Philosophy in Marischal College, Aber- 
deen. His Essay on Truth had a great reputation, while 
his Spenserian poem The Minstrel still finds readers. 
George Beattie (1786-1823), author of John of Arnha, 



ROLL OF HONOUR 111 

was a native of St Cyrus. Thomas Ruddiman (1674- 
1757), for five years schoolmaster of Laurencekirk, was 
a famed Latinist, whose Rudiments had great vogue 




Dr John Arbuthnot 

for many years. David Herd (1732-1810), who belonged 
to Marykirk and edited the first classical collection of 
Scottish Songs ; Dean Ramsay (1793-1872), author of 
Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character ; Dr John 
Longmuir (1803-1883), historian of Dunnottar Castle ; 
and Dr John Brebner (1833-190 2), a native of Fordoun, 



112 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



organiser, and for twenty-five years head, of the 
educational system in the Orange Free State, cannot be 
left unnamed. 





Captain Robert Barclay 

{On his walk of a thousand miles) 

Various members of that family of strong men, the 
Barclays of Urie, achieved fame in different ways. 
The first was Colonel David Barclay, an old soldier of 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 118 

Gustavus Adolphus, who purchased Urie. He turned 
Quaker, and was accordingly persecuted. Readers of 
Whittier will remember the poem beginning : 

" Up the streets of Aberdeen, 
By the kirk and college-green, 
Rode the Laird of Urie." 

Djdng in 1686, he was succeeded by his son Robert 
(1648-1690), who in 1672 had walked in sackcloth through 
Aberdeen as a protest against the wickedness of the 
times. Robert was an eminent man, and his Apology 
is the standard exposition of the principles of the Friends. 
A descendant of his, who died in 1790, was the famous 
agriculturist ; while another, Captain Robert Barclay 
(1779-1854), was a noted pedestrian, whose feat of 
walking 1000 miles in 1000 consecutive hours took place 
at Newmarket in 1809. 



22. The Chief Towns and Villag:es of 
Kincardineshire 

(The figures in brackets after each name give the population 
in 191 1, and those at the end of each section are 
references to pages in the text.) 

Auchinblae, a picturesquely situated village 2 miles north 
of Fordoun Station, is a famous summer resort. Here is 
the entrance to the beautiful Glen of Drumtochty. (p. 56.) 

Banchory (1633), in the parish of Banchory-Ternan, was 
founded in 1805 and is now a Police Burgh. The most 
popular of resorts on Lower Deeside, it is pleasantly situated 
on the north bank of the Dee, 18 miles west of Aberdeen. 



114 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



The picturesque Falls of Feugh are less than a mile from 
the town. The Nordrach-on-Dee Sanatorium stands in 
pine woods a little to the west. The Hill of Fare, to the 
north, was the scene of the battle of Corrichie. (pp. 5, 7, 
10, 14, 22, 47, 55, 72, 74, 99.) 

Bervie (1173), formerly and still officially Inverbervie, a 
royal burgh since 1362, has prosperous flax-spinning mills. 




Nordrach-on-Dee Sanatorium", Banchory 



Salmon - fishing is successfully carried on. David II. 
landed here in 1341, after his exile in France, (pp. 5, 7, 
12, 18, 55, 57, 74, 99, 100, 103.) 

Catterline is a fishing hamlet in Kinneff parish, midway 
between Stonehaven and Bervie. Todhead lighthouse is 
near, (pp. 40, 58.) 

Cove, a fishing village about 4 miles south of Aberdeen, 
has also fish-manure works, (pp. 36, 56, 58, 10 1.) 

Cowie, a fishing hamlet i mile north of Stonehaven, 
(pp. 20, 23, 37, 58, 65, 76, lOI.) 



CHIEF TOWNS AND VILLAGES 115 

Drumlithie (207), an irregularly built village in Glenbervie 
parish. The steeple, erected in 1777, is a circular tower 
surmounted by a belfry. Drumlithie became a Burgh of 
Barony in 1329. (pp. 69, 100.) 

Fettercairn, in the centre of a good agricultural district, 
is a Burgh of Barony, 5 miles north of Laurencekirk. It 
has a Gothic arch erected to commemorate the visit of 




Mending Nets, Gourdon 

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1861 ; and also a 
turreted fountain tower, a memorial to Sir John Hepburn 
Stev/art Forbes, Bart, (i 804-1 866). The old market cross 
of Kincardine stands in the village, (pp. 13, 47, 48, ^5, 56, 
61, 72, 74, 83, 98.) 

Findon, a village between Cove and Portlethen, the original 
home of the well-known "Finnan haddock." (p. 36.) 

Fordoun, a village with station on the Caledonian Railway 
line. The parish has historical associations with St Palla- 



116 KINCARDINESHIRE 

dius, Lord Monboddo, and James Beattie the poet ; and 
contains the site of the old county town, Kincardine. The 
chief village is Auchinblae. (pp. i, 13, 57, 61, 63, 70, 80, 
98, 100, 108, no, III.) 

Gourdon, a fishing village i mile south of Bervie, has a 
flax mill. (pp. 5, 40, 55, 58, 59.) 

Johnshaven, a fishing village and coastguard station in 
the parish of Benholm, has also a spinning mill. (pp. 5, 40, 
55, 58, 59, 94-) 

Laurencekirk (1438), a Burgh of Barony, has a large 
local country trade, a flourishing weekly mart, a brewery, 
coach works, and some handloom weaving. The renowned 
Latinist, Thomas Ruddiman, was for a few years school- 
master here. (pp. 11, 13, 52, 55, 56, 65, 98, 100, 107, no, 
III.) 

Luthermuir, a small village in Marykirk, dating from 
1 77 1, had formerly handloom weaving. 

Marykirk, a village beautifully situated on the left bank 
of the North Esk, a short mile from Craigo railway station, 
(pp. 13, 17, 72, 95, 96, 100, III.) 

Muchalls, a neat little village and coastguard station 
4 miles north of Stonehaven, is famed for its rock scenery 
and is much frequented by summer visitors, (pp. 13, 29, 
30, 36, 69, 88.) 

.Portlethen, a small fishing village, 6 miles south of 
Aberdeen, (pp. 30, 36, 53, 58, 99.) 

St Cyrus, a village with a salmon-fishing station in the 
S.E. corner of the county, was formerly called Ecclesgreig. 
Both St Cyrus and Ecclesgreig contain the name of a king 
of the Scots towards the close of the ninth century. Grig 
or Girig, who won the title of " Liberator of the Scottish 
Church." (pp. 12, 21, 24, 28, 40, 52, 57, 63, 83, 94, 99, m-) 



118 KINCARDINESHIRE 

Skateraw, a small fishing village, close to Newtonhill 
railway station, (pp. 36, 58.) 

Stonehaven (4266), stands on the bay some 14 miles S.S.W. 
of Aberdeen, at the mouths of the Carron and the Cowie. 
In the beginning of the seventeenth century it superseded 
Kincardine as the county town, and in 1889 was made a 
Police Burgh. It consists of an old and a new town. The 
old town, south of the Carron, in Dunnottar parish, is 
irregularly built, and inhabited mostly by fishermen. The 
new town, in Fetteresso parish, lies between the two streams. 
It is regularly laid out and well built. Prominent in the 
central square is the market house with its lofty steeple, 
and in AUardyce Street the Italianate town hall. Other 
notable buildings are the two parish churches and the 
other churches — United Free, Episcopalian, and Roman 
Catholic. The Mackie Academy was opened as a Secondary 
School in 1893. The fishing industry is important ; but 
for general trade the harbour admits only small vessels. 
Of recent years Stonehaven has been much resorted to by 
summer visitors, attracted, for health and pleasure, by its 
bracing climate, fine cliffs and woods, sea-bathing and 
boating, golf course and recreation ground, (pp. 5, 7, 19. 
21, 22, 37, 44, 45, 47, 49, 55> 56, 58, 60, 61, 64, 65, 69, 73, 
74, 93, 96, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103.) 

Strachan, or Kirkton of Strachan, a village 4 miles from 
Banchory-Ternan, is in the largest and hilliest parish. At 
the western boundary of the parish is Mount Battock, 
the converging point of three shires — Kincardine, Forfar, 
Aberdeen. Famous natives were Rev. Andrew Cant and 
Dr Thomas Reid. (pp. 4, 72, 99, no.) 

Torry (11,428), which less than fifty years ago was a small 
fishing village, is now an important ward of Aberdeen. 
It unites with the city for parliamentary, municipal, and 
educational purposes. The construction of the Victoria 
Bridge, to take the place of the ferry, and the introduction 
of trawl-fishing led to the rapid growth of Torry. (p. 50.) 



DIAGRAMS 



119 



Scotland 

(excluding Water) 
29,798 sq. miles 



Kincardine 



Fig. I. Area of Kincardineshire (382 square miles) 
compared with that of Scotland 



Scotland 




4,759,445 






Kincardine 



Fig. 2. Population of Kincardineshire (41,007) compared 
with that of Scotland at the last Census 



120 



KINCARDINESHIRE 



Kincardineshire io8 Scotland 157 



Lanarkshire 1633 



Sutherland 10 
Fig. 3. Comparative density of Population to the square 
mile at the last Census 

{Each dot represents ten persons) 



I80I 


26,349 






1831 


31,431 






I86I 


34,466 






I89I 


35,647 




1901 


40,923 


I9II 


41,007 



Fig. 4. Growth of Population in Kincardineshire 



DIAGRAMS 



121 




Fig. 5. Proportionate area under Corn Crops com- 
pared with that of other cultivated land in 
Kincardineshire 




Fig. 6. Proportionate areas of Chief Cereals in 
Kincardineshire 



122 



KINCARDINESHIRE 




Fig. 7. Proportionate areas of Land in 
Kincardineshire 




Fig. 8. Proportionate numbers of Live Stock 
in Kincardineshire 



